Skip to main content

The Hamentash Experiment

Can it be done?

Can delicious hamentashen be created using… gingerbread cookie dough???

Inspired by Ima on the Bima, this intrepid culinary explorer first inquired (earlier this afternoon), then embarked on a journey of discovery; a journey of… truth.   A journey of cookies.

Luckily, I  had a batch of my trusty Recipezaar gingerbread dough still sitting in the fridge from Sunday just waiting for an application.  Unluckily, I didn’t have the pumpkin-pie filling that I thought would be so perfect tucked inside a gingery nest. 

Rather than wait (which I will foreshadow the experiment’s results by suggesting might have been prudent), I decided to use CHERRY pie filling… well.  I doctored up the filling with a bit of flour to stiffen it up, and scooped it into a bunch of circles cut out from the gingerbread dough (while Naomi Rivka was decorating some gingerbread men and Gavriel Zev was screaming).

Here’s what I got:

cookies 010 

Nice.  I like the contrast between the bright-red and the dark dough.  Wish it was chocolate, actually… but it wasn’t.  The dough was on the stiff and dry side, and cracked a lot when I folded them, but none of the hamentashen leaked when I baked them.

Most did open up, however, a problem which could be solved with a bit of egg wash over the entire inside of the hamentash.   I wanted to do that this time, but discovered we were totally out of eggs.  Blah.

Still, they actually looked okay out of the oven:

cookies 015

Now for the moment of truth:  tasting and judgment.

And they’re actually OKAY.  But not great.  Cherry and ginger?  Not a great combo.  They’re actually crying out for pumpkin, which I  new all along.  Despite having the same last name (“pie filling”), Cherry Pie Filling doesn’t fill in where Pumpkin is called for.  Doh!  I knew that.  I should have waited ‘till after Ted goes grocery shopping tonight… but I didn’t.

My father used to have an expression, when something my mother made came out pretty bad (rare!)… he’d say, “you don’t have to make this for me again.”  These were not THAT bad.  Will I make them again?

Sure!  With pumpkin filling this time.  So I’m pretty much back where I started.

The experiment proved that… well, it proved that I still want to try gingerbread hamentashen with a pumpkin filling.  It did also demonstrate that it might be a challenge using this trusty (and sturdy!) gingerbread dough as a hamentash… but with a bit more moisture, and perhaps a bit of egg wash, the hamentashen might just work out.

Meanwhile, we have about eight cherry-ginger hamentashen to finish off… want one?

Comments

  1. Peach pie filling would be awfully tasty in there too. Peach and ginger is a classic pairing... apricots are similar enough to peaches that they might work nicely as well. And you certainly see a lot of hamentaschen with apricot filling!

    My head is spinning with all the possibilities!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Never thought of that! Ted's absolutely crazy about peaches... I'm sure he'd approve!

    ReplyDelete
  3. i made mine with peach and apricot, and they were good. my mom's comment: "well, they don't taste like hamantaschen."

    !?

    of course not! they taste like gingerbread!

    thanks for the shout-out:-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love your comments!

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

It's Heart Month: 3 days left to save lives!

Dear Friends & Family: Hi, everybody! Sorry I can’t stop by in person... you're a bit out of my area.  :-) We’re out walking up and down on our street on this beautiful afternoon to raise money for Heart & Stroke.  This cause is important to me (I won't say it's close to my heart , because that would be tacky!).  I hope you'll join me by donating online. Growing up, I watched as every single one of my grandparents' lives were shortened by heart disease and strokes, and my father had a defibrillator that saved his life on more than one occasion.  Heart disease and stroke kill 1 in 3 Canadians and are the #1 killer of women. Please click this link to be redirected to my main page at the Heart & Stroke website: http://tinyurl.com/AtlasHeart Thus ends my personal appeal.  Official information follows.  :-))) ----- Heart disease and stroke is the #1 killer of women - taking more women's lives than all forms of cancer combined. But no one is immune. Th