Hamantaschen

No not a swear word - although I did come very close as will be revealed! Hamantaschen are traditional pastries eaten at the celebration of the Jewish festival of Purim.  Now it just happens that I am teaching  my class about Queen Esther and Purim   in RE. I thought it would be a good idea to make some Hamantaschen for them to try in the next lesson, tomorrow afternoon. Anyone who knows me knows that next to sewing, cooking is not on my list of things I like to do!

Undeterred I printed off a recipe from the internet using the word 'easy' in the search engine!  Well I should have know it was not going to be as easy as I hoped because try as I might I could get no further than instruction 2. (Here is a photo - can you do any better?)



After reading it several times I realised that the problem lay not in my ability, or lack of, to decipher 'easy' recipes, rather in the absence of some of the ingredients. Back to the computer and print out number two.  Still the same problem so I wrote them in.

Returning to the kitchen the oven was by now heated up and ready so I got cracking on making up the dough.  With 31 children in the class I doubled the amounts, filled up the Kenwood bowl and set it to mix the dough.  About half way through my 28 year old machine stopped. No bang, no puff of smoke, it just stopped.  Now I am left with a large bowl full of half mixed, very sticky dough. (You can see now why I came close to swearing and I have only just started this cooking adventure!)Time to get stuck in, literally,  and finish off the mixing by hand.  

Some time later I had a dough that I could actually roll out and cut into circles with a cookie cutter.  Things are looking up, I thought. First batch cut, stuffed with jam and sealed into triangles ready for the oven. However the thought of the hot oven must have terrified them and they somehow jumped off the baking tray and onto the floor.

Deep breath and batch 2 very carefully transferred to the oven and cooked successfully. Hurray! On a roll now try batch 3 with a different filling. They cooked beautifully, just one problem all the filling came out leaving empty triangles. (Note to self for next time, if there is a next time after today, honey is not a good filling for Hamanteschen!)



After that things settled down again and the rest of the batches went in the oven, cooked and came out with no misadventure.  All was ok in the end and I had enough for the class and a few to spare.  Think I will put the kettle on now!



As for my poor old Kenwood, a change of fuse did no good so after all those years of faithful service, despite much abuse, I think it is beyond recovery. I shall be sorry to see it go especially as it was a wedding present from Tim's sister Debbie who died of cancer a few years ago.

I would like to dedicate this blog to all those who, like myself, are challenged in the kitchen!

Thanks for visiting. Take care.

Pippa