Plum Crazy

About a week or so ago, Just John suggested I post my favorite Purim recipes. Well, Purim ended at sundown today, so I thought I'd more or less oblige. I say more or less, because I don't actually have Purim recipes. I have Purim recipe - namely hamantaschen. I just finished baking a batch to bring into work tomorrow. However, my colleagues at work, most of them non-Jewish, don't refer to them as hamantaschen, a name they seem singularly incapable of either remembering or pronouncing. Instead they call them little hats. This is because hamantaschen are tri-cornered cookies, and the tri-corner shape is to represent the hat worn by the villain of the Purim story - Haman. Since "little hats" is a name they can both recall and pronounce, for some time we have been celebrating Little Hat Day at my office.

For those of you who would like to celebrate Little Hat Day yourselves, following is my Little Hats recipe:

4 cups flour
4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup margarine, softened
1 tbsp. orange juice
2 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1 tsp. orange rind

Fillings
Traditional fillings are apricot preserves, lekvar (prune butter), and mohn (poppyseed filling). However, as I, personally, do not like hamantaschen filled with lekvar or mohn, I make other fillings instead. Every year I make apricot and raspberry, and then I alternate the others. This year I'm doing blueberry and cherry. In past years, I've successfully tried strawberry and plum as well. Try whatever flavors you like. My only warning is that orange marmalade makes particularly poor hamantaschen. The sweet orange marmalade has a taste that is so delicate it is overcome by the taste of the cookie dough. I never tried the bitter kind, but I wouldn't want a cookie filled with bitter orange marmalade anyway.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease cookie sheets.

Place all ingredients in a large mixer bowl and beat together. If needed, add a drop more juice or flour, depending on the consistency of the dough. Roll dough into a ball. Divide into four parts.

On a floured board, roll out each portion to about 1/8 inch thick. Using a round biscuit or cookie cutter, cut 3 inch circles. Place 1/2 teaspoon of filling in the middle of each circle. To make the triangle shape, lift up the right and left sides, leaving the bottom down, and bring both sides to meet at the center above the filling. Bring top flap down to the center to meet the two sides. Pinch edges together. Place on greased cookie sheets 1 inch apart (I actually put the filling in and do the pinching on the cookie sheet) and bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Let cool, and you've got yourself some Little Hats.

Enjoy!