Chocolate Hamantashen

Recipe By Judy Bart Kancigor

Cooking and Prep: 1 h 40 m
Serves: 24
Contains:

Preference: Dairy
Difficulty: Medium
Occasion: Purim
Diet: Vegetarian , Pescetarian
Source: OU Kosher
Cuisines: Ashkenazi

Makes about 4 dozen

Long ago, in my den mother days, a friend gave me her family's recipe for Polish kolacky. I shaped them as Haman's hats and made them for Purim. Because my family wouldn't touch poppy seed filling, preferring Chocolate to any fruit, I created my own tradition.

Bulletin! This just in! Taschen means "pockets," and Haman never wore a three-cornered hat! (You just can't believe anything you hear these days.) Matthew Goodman, the "Food Maven" columnist of the Forward, points out in Jewish Food: The World at Table that these Purim sweets were originally called mohntaschen, meaning "poppy seed pockets." Over the years the word morphed into hamantaschen ("Haman's pockets"), referring to his coat pockets, which supposedly held the lots (purim) he cast in order to choose the date for the slaughter of the Jews in his kingdom.

Ingredients (9)

Main ingredients

1 package (8 ounce) cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon Gefen Vanilla Extract

X

Gefen Pure Vanilla Extract

Topping

1 egg, lightly beaten
confectioner's sugar

Start Cooking

Prepare the Dough

Cream the cream cheese, butter, and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until blended and smooth.
Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the flour, beating until incorporated.
Divide the dough into three portions, and roll each portion out between two pieces of waxed or Gefen Easy Baking Parchment paper until it is an eighth-inch thick.
Without removing the paper, pile the sheets of dough onto a baking sheet and freeze them until firm, about 30 minutes.

Prepare the Filling

Combine the chocolate and the condensed milk in a small saucepan over low heat, and stir until smooth.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Set the filling aside to cool to room temperature.

Note:

The filling can be covered and refrigerated for up to three days. Let it sit at room temperature until spreadable.

Assemble and Bake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line several baking sheets with Gefen Easy Baking Parchment Paper.
Remove the sheets of dough from the freezer one at a time.
Remove the paper and cut out the dough with a two and a half-inch round cookie cutter.
Reroll and cut out the scraps. (If it becomes sticky, return the sheet of dough, in the waxed paper, to the refrigerator to firm up.)
Brush each round with the beaten egg, and drop one level teaspoon of the filling in the center.
Pinch the cookies tightly in three places to form a triangle shape.
Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets and bake, two sheets at a time, on the bottom third and top third oven racks, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through, until the edges of the cookies are just beginning to brown, 18 to 22 minutes.
Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets set on wire racks. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.
Sprinkle confectioner's sugar over the cookies just before serving.

About

This recipe originally appeared in Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family (Workman Publishing).

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Chocolate Hamantashen