Raspberry, Chocolate, and Poppyseed Hamantashen
My mom used to create specific Hamantashen fillings for each of us. Traditional poppyseed filling for her, fruit preserves for my dad, and chocolate for the kids. It wasn’t typical for her to act as family short order cook. She was talented in the kitchen and we were more than happy to dig in to what was put in front of us — A family of good eaters, no surprise there I suppose! But it did feel special to have treats made specifically for us!
These are a tribute to and a thank you for my mom's efforts to make all of us happy with all three fillings bundled together in light and crispy pastry.
For the cookie dough, I used this Hamantashen recipe from Zingerman's (Go Blue!) posted on King Arthur Baking, they were light, crisp and delicious. My filling recipe is below. I hope you enjoy!!
Photos by Daniel Marks
Chocolate, Poppyseed, and Raspberry Hamantashen Recipe:
Yield:
Approximately 30 cookies
Difficulty:
Easy
Ingredients:
For the Dough
Full dough recipe from this recipe on King Arthur Baking , chilled
For the Filling
1 ¼ cup raspberry preserves*
1½ TBSP poppyseeds
½ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
*I like Bonne Maman Raspberry preserves because it doesn't have too many seeds and it's full of flavor. If if your brand has a lot of seeds, you may want to skip the poppyseeds.
Instructions:
In a small or medium saucepan, heat the raspberry preserves until softened so you can easily stir in the other ingredients, but not so hot that it starts to simmer or boil. Remove from heat, let cool until it’s warm, not hot, and stir in chocolate chips and poppyseeds. If your jam or preserves are already pliable feel free to skip this step
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Lightly flour a work surface, and one portion of cookie dough, then roll out to 1/8-inch thick. If it's hard to roll out, give it a few taps with the rolling pin.
Using a 3" round cookie or biscuit cutter, cut out circles of dough and place them on the prepared baking sheet.
Reroll scraps and cut out as needed.
Scoop rounded teaspoonfulls of the raspberry mixture onto the center of each circle of dough. Brush the edges with water.
Fold up the edges of two sides of the circle to make an A shape, pinching the top of the A together, then fold up the bottom, pinching the remaining 2 corners to finish the triangle. The dough should partially cover the filling but not fully cover it. The sides of the triangle should ideally be even, about 1 inch long each. Repeat for each circle of dough.
Bake the cookies for approximately 18 minutes, or until the edges and bottoms are golden brown, rotating the trays top to bottom halfway through the bake.
