The Jewish festival of Purim starts today, bringing with it one of my longtime culinary bugaboos - the hamantaschen. These cookies, meant to resemble the tricorned hat of Haman, the villain of the Purim story, consist of a buttery dough folded around a generous dollop of filling - usually jam, chocolate chips or sweetened poppy seed paste. Sounds good, right? But alas nearly ever hamantaschen I've tried has been awful - sticky, heavy, bland. I've been testing recipes ever since I was a little kid baking in the synagogue kitchen during Sunday School, but have yet to hit on one that's worth the cost of the flour.
Today, however, I'm seeing a glimmer of hope on the hamantaschen front. In a post on the New York Times' Bitten Blog, Deborah Gardner offers her grandmother's own recipe. These gorgeous, golden hamantaschen have "tender, lemon-zest-flavored dough...a far cry from the thick, dry shell of most hamantaschen, and the tart filling perfectly offsets the sweet crumb. These are the kind of hamantaschen for which any self-respecting prune would be happy to meet its maker," Gardner promises.
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