Hummina hummina hamantaschen

Happy post-Purim, good people of the Sauk Valley!

So, full disclosure: I’m not Jewish, but I have been to my fair share of bar and bat mitzvahs. – usually invited, but once or twice I just kind of accidentally wandered into the party. I also like to write about food, and love, love, love Jewish cooking. So, in honor of one of the most fun Jewish holidays, I decided to teach you all how to make hamantaschen: sweet, triangle-shaped cookies usually filled with some kind of a fruit, nut, or candy filling.

Say it with me: Ha-men-tosh-in.

Good job!

Purim, which fell on sunset, March 4, to nightfall of March 5 this year, celebrates the defeat of Haman (the bad guy) and his plot to kill the Jews, by Esther (the Jewish hero). The story is actually pretty dark as far as hero stories go, and ends in a monumental bloodbath of Persians, but let’s get back to cookies.

Hamantaschen are so named for, the Internet says, a variety of reasons. Perhaps they resembled Haman’s ear. Or is it his hat? Or maybe they were popular German pastries that got folded into Jewish tradition because the German word kind of sounded like Haman.

In any case, the most popular telling of the history of modern-day hamantaschen is that the three-pointed cookies resemble Haman’s three-pointed hat, which, sure – they do.

Cookies!

Hamantaschen dough

1 cup butter or margarine

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

4 cups flour

Filling

Jam, perhaps chocolate, caramel might be cool, whatever your heart desires

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix first three ingredients together, then add flour.

3. Using a rolling pin or some other equally hard cylindrical item (wine bottles work in a pinch), roll dough into about a ¼-inch sheet.

4. Cut into 3-inch to 4-inch circles using a cookie cutter (or comparably sized drinking glass, jar lid, etc.)

5. Put about 1 teaspoon of the filling of your choice (I used jam because I’m lazy) into the center of the cookie.

6. Beat one extra egg to create an egg wash.

7. Apply egg wash to exterior edge of circles, and pinch cookies together to create the triangle shape. Put more egg wash on the creases to make sure they stick.

8. Bake for 20-ish minutes, and enjoy!