A Twist On Tradition

Don't you love Purim? I LOVE Purim!  I love eating Hamentashen (who doesnt!!), I love checking out the cool costumes people put together and I love the opportunity to celebrate happy times with my family and friends! Along with all the fun and games, I also LOVE the Purim story! I think it is a great story  - with a great lesson too! In the Megillah we read all about how the Jewish nation escaped destruction with the help of Queen Esther - and of course with G-d working the story from behind the scenes. As one reads the story of Purim, it may seem as if the Jewish people were headed toward a horrific fate - we of course see in the end of the story that everything was turned around - with Haman facing his own demise instead of that of the Jewish people. Lesson learned? When things look gloomy, we must not despair - Hashem is always listening to our prayers!

Being the cookie lover that I am - I almost always get out my rolling pin and bake a whole bunch of Hamentashen! This year was no different - but this time I opted to try an experiment. In recent months, I have decided that I LOVE peanut butter! (My mother laughs every time I say this because as a child I wouldn't go near peanut butter.) Last night I decided to put a little twist on tradition and make some peanut butter and jelly Hamentashen.

After making a good number of regular Hamentashen, using my regular dough - I went ahead and added a good amount of peanut butter to my dough. I found that the dough really changed with the addition of the peanut butter. I also found that I had to mix extra flour into the dough before I rolled it out. While the dough was certainly more crumbly than the regular Hamentashen, with a little patience (ok - a LOT!) I was able to roll out and fill my cookies! I have to say, the pb Hamentashen, filled with jelly, were awesome!

Here is the "recipe". (It is my regular Hamentash recipe - with the addition of peanut butter.)

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

5 cups flour (you will need to add more when rolling out the dough)

2 tsps. baking powder.

Peanut butter

Strawberry preserves

Preheat oven to 350

Grease cookie sheet.

Beat eggs and sugar. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. 

Roll out dough, cut out circles and fill with strawberry preserves.. 

Fold in dough to create Hamentashen (3 corners)

Brush corners with water and pinch together. 

Bake for 20 minutes.