True confession, I have never made homemade Hamantaschen dough. I have made them using a store bought pie dough and even a frozen puff pastry dough. That is totally fine! If you use the pie dough trick, I like to fold the dough in half to double the thickness and then roll it a little to stick.

Maybe because I am “talking” to you all a lot more, this year or maybe because I was feeling it; this year I decided to make my own dough. Let me say there are hundreds of recipes out there for Hamantaschen. They all have slight variations, some in the dry ingredients and some in the fat. I’m sure they are all good.

But for my first effort, I wanted a pro. I went with Leah Koenig’s recipe, from her book, The Jewish CookBook. It was so easy to follow and produced a great cookie. I made a few adjustments for my kitchen, but stayed pretty true to the recipe.

I did not make my own filling. I used Nutella and store bought Strawberry Jam. Make a batch and enjoy!

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Hamantaschen- Adapted from Leah Koenig's recipe

This is the easiest and pretty much fool proof recipe for hamantaschen. You can make your own fillings, but feel free to use store bought.

Course: Endings

Cuisine: International

Keyword: butter, cookie dough, hamamtaschen

Ingredients

• 2-1/2 cups All-purpose Flour, more for kneading
• 1 tsp. Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp. Kosher Salt
• 1 stick Unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup Granulated White Sugar
• 2 large Eggs
• 1-1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• Assorted Fillings

Instructions

• Sift together flour, baking powder and salt, in a medium bowl.

  In a stand-up mixer, fitted with a paddle, beat butter and sugar until light in color and fluffy.

  Add one egg at a time, then vanilla. Make sure to scrape down sides and bottom.

  Gradually add flour, in 3 additions. Scrape down sides.

  You are looking for a soft, pliable dough. If it looks too dry, you can add a teaspoon of cold water at a time until desired consistency. If it is too wet, add flour, one tablespoon at a time.
• When dough is at desired consistency, gather it and knead into a disk and wrap in plastic. I like to divide it in half now but you don't have to.

  Chill for 3 hours up to overnight.
• Preheat oven to350°.

  Remove half the dough from refrigerator and place on a lightly floured surface.

  Using a rolling pin, roll out to 1/4". This is important. You don't want them too thin. They won't hold together when filled and baking. You don't want then to thick. They will bake up too hard.

  Use a 3" cookie cutter or even a glass, cut out as many rounds as you can and place on a parchment lined baking sheet, or two. It is better to go larger than smaller, if you don't have a 3" cutter.

  Gather up the scraps and re-roll. These will be soft so be conscious of thickness.
• Once you have rolled out all your dough, I like to refrigerate them to 10-15 minutes to make them easier to work with.

  When ready to fill, take 1 well- rounded teaspoon of filling and place in center of dough. This may not seem like a lot of filling, it is.

  To form the triangle shape fold the left side in, on an angle. Then fold the right side in. FInally, fold the bottom up and tuck one side under the left side to form a pocket. Pinch all corners tigether, to seal.

  You can just use a pinch method all the way around, rather than fold. It's easier but make sure you really oinch well so they don't fall.
• Bake 15-18 minutes, until light golden brown.

  Cool on pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to rack and cool completely.