Hamantashen Madness

In case you haven’t been following my blog posts this week, I’ve been living in hamantashen hell.  Maybe a slight exaggeration but pretty close to it.

A couple weeks ago, my fiance traveled to Tel Aviv for business. While researching restaurants and dried fruit stores in the city, we came across an article published in the New York Times about modern flavours of hamantashen and this Tel Aviv bakery who was spicing up the holiday cookie.

Upon his return, we came up with the idea that we should jointly bake hamantashen for Purim and get in the festive mood.  The problem was that neither of us have made hamantashen since we were eight years old, so we had to first locate a recipe suitable for experimentation.  I had a big bag of poppy seeds sitting around on my counter so I flipped through some cookbooks and Googled “poppy seed hamantashen recipe” to get some ideas.  We decided to narrow our selection down to three recipes and bake three batches to see which one was the best.

During my preliminary research, I came across two comical posts from Smitten Kitchen (here &  here)  sharing her experiences in making these fun haman’s hat cookies. (Not soo easy) I also found some enticing recipes from the New York Times Hamantashen with Poppy Seed Filling, Seattle Times Orange Poppy Seed Hamantashen and Epicurious’s Traditional Hamantashen recipe.  We planned it all out: One hamantashen recipe a day for three days and then taste test.

Here are the results:

#1 Traditional Hamantashen recipe from Epicurious:

This dough was falling apart.  It was cracking, dry and crumbly.  I ended up adding more liquid (orange juice) just to get it to hold together.  I also burnt the first batch because my oven was hotter than the recipe, so I ended up reducing the time to 10 min on the second batch which worked out better.  These hamantashen tasted good (I used apricot jam from the jar because I was so frustrated with the dough and wanted the experience to come to an end) but this recipe was a pain.

#2 NY Times Hamantashen Recipe:

A much better recipe than the Epicurious recipe but the dough was still quite crumbly and hard to work with.  I did like the fact that the recipe called for butter instead of shortening and liked the powdered sugar instead of regular sugar.  After mixing all the ingredients, the dough seemed to have a nice consistency but for some reason, it still broke apart.  This cookie had a lemon flavour instead of orange rind and juice which worked well with my thick apricot jam filling.  Half way through baking, I tried a looser cherry jam upon my fiance’s request, and these things literally exploded in the oven and came out as red blobs, plastered to the baking sheet.  Conclusion: The dough was not strong enough to handle a more liquid filling.  Close but no cigar- still tasty though.

#3 Kinnereth Cookbook (and the winner)- The perfect dough recipe.  It was moist, easy to roll and the edges stayed smooth on the cookies.  As for the filling, I had to do some major alterations to the poppy seed mixture to get it to a thicker consistency.  I ended up adding dates and walnuts on top of the lemon juice, honey and sugar.  (recipe below).  If I were to make this recipe again, I would add lemon or orange rind to the dough for just a hint of flavour since right now the dough is rather plain.  However, I’ll take plain with a hint of sweet over crumbling, disaster dough any day.

From the Kinnereth Cookbook

For Cookie Dough:

3 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
3 eggs
1 egg beaten for brushing dough

Preheat oven to 400F or 200C.  Sift flour, baking powder, sugar and salt together.  Cut in butter.  Beat in eggs and mix to a soft dough.  Roll out on a floured board to 1/4″ in thickness.  Cut with a round cookie cutter or glass. Spoon desired filling in the centre and pinch circle together to form a triangle shape.  Brush with beaten egg and place on a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Bake for 12-15 min.  Mine only needed 10 minutes to come out golden but it depends on your oven.

Poppy Seed Filling:

1/2 pound of poppy seeds (225 grams)
1/2 cup honey
juice and rind of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup granulated sugar
I added 6 dates and 1/3 cup of walnuts (play around with quantity)

Scald poppy seeds with boiling water two or three times.  This tripped me up.  I boiled water, soaked the poppy seeds and put them in the food processor to grind.  It didn’t work.  There was still too much liquid.  I read that putting them through a coffee grinder (unsoaked) is better than a food processor but I did not try this method.  Basically blend all the ingredients together until you have a pseudo-paste that can hold its shape on the dough.  If it is too liquid, you risk hamantashen overflow or explosion, so pay attention to the consistency.

You really could fill these cookies with just about anything like stewed apples, cherries, prunes, dates, jam, or chocolate.  Be creative.  It’s the dough that makes or breaks the recipe.

And so our story ends with hamantashen for all.  I am retiring my hamantashen baking until next March.  If you are feeling ambitious and want to try a recipe, let me save you from hardship.  Stick with the Kinnereth!!!!

Love This: Hip Shops

I am on my way downstairs to bake batch #3 of hamantashen.  Tonight I am baking a poppy seed hamantashen recipe from the Kinnereth cookbook.  I am hoping the third time is a charm and I am calamity free.  I walked back to the grocery store to buy a new bag of flour.  I actually found a bag that had an English translation on the package so I could avoid yesterday’s error of purchasing bread flour.  You’ll be able to see my hamantashen results and recipes in tomorrow’s blog post.

On to more important things: today I wanted to blog about a very cool website that I found called hip shops.  If you are an avid traveler and enjoy dabbling in and scouting out cool shops around the world like I do, you will appreciate the site: Hip Shops.

Photo via Theorii

The best way to describe this site is that its a social platform where you can browse the shops that have been curated by HipShops or share/upload/create your own list of cool shop finds on your travels. You can also email your lists to people so if you’re that type of person who likes to share and recommend things, this is a neat way to document, map and communicate your treasures!

I am totally going to make use of this.  This is my kind of site!

Terrariums

I am a complete and utter failure at making hamantashen.  It’s Purim on Wednesday and I thought it would be fun to bake three different hamantashen recipe and then write a blog post about my baking escapades on Wednesday.  I promise to show and tell on Wednesday but after two different recipes, the taste is there but sadly they are not the prettiest things I’ve ever made.  Not even close. My triangles are deformed, cracking and the jam in the centre is oozing everywhere!

I really think it has something to do with the flour I am using.  I still can’t decipher the different types of flour in Prague.  I know one is for bread, one is for cakes and then there is a third one that is some sort of hybrid.  I think I have tried two of the three types but I can’t figure out which one is closest to North American all-purpose flour.

On another note, my new infatuation is with terrariums.  I like saying the word and I want to make one for my apartment in Prague.    A terrarium is typically housed in a glass container and is something where plants are grown.  I got turned on to terrariums when I read about Anthropologie’s new line from Slug and Squirrel on the Times Magazine blog. Of course after I read the article, I started noticing terrariums everywhere. It always seems to happen that way, once something becomes top of mind, you eyes open up and you start seeing the thing everywhere.

They are such a cute idea for events, don’t you think?

via Camille Styles

via Stuart and Welch

via the sweetest occasion

via Green Wedding Shoes

via Project Wedding

By the way, if you want the history of the terrarium, Design Sponge has a great blog post on the topic.

More on the hamantashen soon, I promise.

Pasam Baklava: Berlin

Every time I travel to a new city, I make a point of familiarizing myself with the bloggers who write about the city I am visiting before venturing to other sources such as newspaper and magazine travel sections.  I feel the blogger perspective is closer to the street and perhaps a little more objective than traditional media sources, although don’t get me wrong, the Guardian’s review of Berlin’s top cafes and bakeries was awesome and extremely helpful in figuring out which spots to visit in the city.

While reading about Berlin, I discovered the city has a sizable Turkish population and Anadolu Market (Turkish market).  Keeping in the vein of Turkish food, a handful of Berlin bloggers reviewed Pasam Baklava as THE place to go for baklava in the city.  Since I have a sweet spot for baklava (as did my travel companions), I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pay this bakery a visit.  We drove to Pasam 30 minutes before it was due to close and when we arrived, we had the entire place to ourselves.  The three of us, like kids in a candy shop, excitedly pressed our fingers up against the glass standing between us and the colourful trays of baklava.

I have never seen so many types before and they were so beautifully laid out in massive trays the entire length of the counter. I am only acquainted with the traditional baklava made of phyllo dough layered with cinnamon, nuts and honey. At Pasam, we decided to make the most of the experience and try one of everything.  Or at least nearly one of everything.  We tried sarma with pistachios (the first picture below), sobiyet (also photo below), kadayif which is like a square of thin noodles held together with something sweet, as well as Turkish baklava and some cookies.

After the decadently sweet and delicious experience at Pasam in Berlin, I think I need to take a course on Turkish desserts or get myself to Istanbul sometime soon, so I can learn more about the different varieties of what I ate.  I still can’t differentiate them all but I assure you, with a cup of tea, they were to die for.

Other bloggers who reviewed Pasam Baklava in Berlin include:

Berlin Reified: Perfect Baklava at Yorckstrasse

(The Wednesday Chef) Berlin on a Platter: Pasam Balkava

The Colour of Pomegranates: Satisfying a sweet tooth at Pasam Baklava

Black Roses Comme de Garcon

I just returned home from watching a hilarious live performance of Shakespere’s Commedy of Errors broadcast by the National Theatre at a cinema in Prague.  While I was gone, I received this lovely photo from a friend.

I loved it so much I thought I would share it with you all.

The Black Roses poster by Comme de Garçon is circa 1995.

Enjoy

photo via Anothermag