How do you like your hamantaschen?

Chocolate chip, strawberry, apricot, prune – so many different flavors to choose! The consensus in our household was strawberry and apricot for this year’s celebration of the Jewish holiday of Purim. For those of you who have no idea of what I speak, hamantaschen are small, hat-shaped cookies baked during this time of the year that are supposed to resemble the evil Haman’s hat, like this:

We made them last year, and they came out pretty darn good so I thought I’d try again.  Since I’ve been working 10 hour days for about the last 2 weeks, my brain has not been quite right and I had a baking/mommy fail – I forgot the dough had to chill for several hours before making the cookies.  Of course, since we have such jam-packed weekends with the little monkey, we didn’t start the baking process until nearly dinnertime and only got so far as mixing up the dough.  Here are a few pics – my favorite is of the little monkey trying to inhale the mixer beaters:

Creamed butter and sugar…want. to. eat. it.

Orange zest and vanilla, essential for a yummy cookie.

Crumbly dough – perfect Hamantaschen consistency.

I need to get every last bite Mama.

Since they had to chill, Grandma saved us by baking them off the next day. I am trying my best not to eat more than one a day – but it’s really difficult!

If you would like a similar challenge – please visit Tori Avey’s site for the recipe HERE. If you substitute whole wheat flour for white, you can feel slightly better about eating more than one.

If you would like to be crazy like me and try to make your own apricot filling, click HERE. This recipe is delicious – and I recommend pureeing it or you will be stuck with huge hunks of apricot in your cookies (like in mine, still tastes good, but hard to manage when filling cookies)

If you are too lazy to make any other fillings, feel free to buy some of your favorite preserves and throw a dollop in the middle of the cookies before you fold them.  Mmm….think I am going to go have one…right…now.