Great Hamentaschen Bake Off of 2014

I know this post is late. I know! But how can you have a Great Hamentaschen Bake Off before Purim! And then I was a slacker. I admit it. A friend of mine and I decided to have a bake off. My recipe can be found here - We Put The Mon in Hamentaschen. This year I made my own plum filling from a recipe I found at The Shiksa In The Kitchen. Here is her recipe. I will give you Megan's recipes for the dough and the insides as well as my doctored recipe for the plum filling.

Megan's Fancy (and Delicious) Hamentaschen:Dough Ingredients:
  1. 1 cube butter or margarine
  2. 1 cup sugar
  3. 3 eggs
  4. 1 tsp baking powder
  5. 1/2 tsp baking soda
  6. 3 1/2-4 cups flour
  7. 1/3 cup orange juice

Dough Preparation:

  1. Cream the butter and sugar
  2. Add eggs
  3. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl (start with 3 1/2 cup flour)
  4. Alternate dry & wet ingredients
  5. Add more flour if dough is too sticky to roll
  6. Roll dough and cut into circles
  7. Fill with dried fruit mix
  8. Wet finger and dampen edge of dough circle
  9. Squeeze circle together in 3 places to form triangle
  10. Brush with beaten egg and bake at 375° for around 15 minutes

Dried Fruit Filling Ingredients:Around 3oz of each:

  1. Prunes (pitted)
  2. Raisins
  3. Dried apricots
  4. Dried cranberries
  5. Dried figs
  6. Dried dates (pitted)

Plus some strawberry jam

Dried Fruit Filling Preparation:

  1. Chop fruit up in food processor. If you don't have one and you are cutting by hand put some oil on the knife to keep it from getting gummed up by the dried fruit.
  2. Put all chopped fruit together in bowl and mix in strawberry jam until everything is mixed together.

Fruits beforeInside mixFinal_2

KSE Version of Plum Butter Hamentaschen Filling:Ingredients (This makes a lot! You can reduce by half!):
  1. 1/4 cup orange liquor (I used Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur and Ferrand Dry Orange Curacao)
  2. 2 cups pitted prunes
  3. 1 cup water
  4. 1 tsp orange zest
  5. 1/4 tsp salt
  6. 1/3 cup brown sugar

Preparation:

  1. First thing, if you are using the liquor method, put it in a small saucepan and cook off some of the liquor.
  2. Next add the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT THE BROWN SUGAR into a pan. Stir and bring to a boil for one minute.
  3. Reduce heat to medium low so the mixture simmers slowly and constantly. Cover the pot. Let the mixture simmer covered for 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes.
  4. Remove the lid from the pan. Let the prunes continue to simmer for 3-5 more minutes, stirring frequently, until most of the liquid has evaporated/absorbed. Keep a close eye on the pan to make sure the prunes don't burn. When there are about 3 tbsp of liquid left in the pan, remove from heat.
  5. Stir the brown sugar into the prune mixture till brown sugar melts and dissolves.
  6. Mash the prune mixture with a fork. You can also use an immersion blender for a smoother puree, if you want to. (She recommended a potato masher... large fork worked perfect for me!)
  7. Let cool to room temperature before using. Store in a sealed, airtight container in the refrigerator. Refrigerating the filling to chill completely will make it easier to work with when filling hamantaschen.