Happy Purim!

I'm still not being a good little Blogger-Bee and I'm nowhere near caught up with all I've made lately, but I've decided to Skip to the End (and go back later) because this is time-sensitive.

Purim is tomorrow. If you don't know what that is, and don't feel like clicking the link, it's one of the many Jewish "Hooray! We Weren't Genocided!" holidays. It's customary to eat a metric assload of junk food on Purim, including (but not limited to) hamentashen. Hamentashen are a BFD for me. I look forward to them all year. When I realized they all have egg in them, I wondered if I might actually be tempted to cheat on veganism.

Then I remembered I know how to bake. Behold!



I stole my mother's recipe, looked up egg replacement suggestions in Papa Tofu and got to work. This was my first time veganizing something without asking for help from The PPK and they came out really good, if I may say so myself. Too good. I ate SIX yesterday. Thank goodness I have many friends, coworkers and family members willing to take the rest off my hands. I don't know why, but they taste sort of buttery and the buttery + the preserves = good times.

On to the recipe!

Hamentashen

Makes about 33 3" cookies

Note: This is how my mother wrote up the recipe (except for the eggs). The flour measurement is kind of wrong. By a lot. Unfortunately, I didn't measure how much extra flour I added. You'll know you have enough flour when your dough is firm, dry and easy to pass from hand to hand without sticking. And it shouldn't leave any moisture on your rolling pin. Sorry about that.

Also, be generous with your filling. Don't go crazy with it, but I think it's better to have too much than too little. If you're having trouble closing your hamentashen, just scrape some off. That beats having bald spots. If you use jam/preserves, use the thickest, fruitiest one you can find (I used raspberry and apricot Hero preserves, available at Whole Foods). It will boil during baking and if it's too thin, you'll end up with glaze on the bottom of your cookie instead of filling (underfilling can also lead to a glazey cookie).

Ingredients
3/4 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup soy yogurt
1 1/2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer dissolved in 2 tbsp warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp orange juice
2 1/2+ cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
Fillings of your choice

Preheat oven to 375 F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In mixing bowl, blend sugar, yogurt, Enger-G, vanilla and OJ well with fork. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix until it gets doughy, then knead it until all flour is blended and dough is desired consistency (see note above). Split dough into two halves. Roll out one half of the dough until it's a bit more than 1/8" thick. It should be thick enough to be able to support the filling, but thin enough to fold easily. Using a glass or cookie cutter, cut the dough into approximately 3" rounds (I used a plastic mug and the diameter was probably closer to 3.25").



Place a spoonful of filling in the center of each round.



Fold the dough up around the filling and pinch the edges together into a triangle.



Repeat with second half of dough. Place hamentashen on parchment-lined cookie sheet. They don't expand much, so it's OK if they're close (though if some of your hamentashen are overfull, they may ooze over onto their neighbors). Bake for about 25 minutes or until browned to your liking.

The variations for these things are practically endless. Other popular fillings are prune, poppy seed and chocolate. If you want to get creative, dip one corner in some melted chocolate. Make it fancy by dipping the chocolaty end in colored sprinkles, chopped nuts or shredded coconut.

That's it. Try it, you'll like it. Have another, you're too thin!*



*That'd be my Jewish grandmother impression.