Purim may be over, but hamentaschen are delicious all year round so I don’t feel bad posting this after the fact. Also, I didn’t attempt this recipe until the last possible moment before the holiday so couldn’t post it in time for you to use it in your celebrations. Oh well – bookmark it for next year.
Through Instagram, I learned of a hamentaschen hack that seemed almost too good to be true. Basically, the dough uses a box of cake mix and doesn’t require chilling. Since I’ve heard hamentaschen dough is quite difficult to work with, I welcomed something that would simplify things.
Preheat the oven to 375 while you make your dough. Mix (I used an electric mixer) together 2 eggs, 1 c. flour, 1/4 c. vegetable oil, 2 tbsp water, and 1 box yellow cake mix. On a floured surface, roll the dough out to about 1/8 in thick and use a glass to cut out circles. Fill each circle with 1 tsp of your preferred jam/filling and fold up three sides of to form a triangle, pinching the corners to seal if necessary. And, yes, 1 tsp of filling is enough. any more and your hamentashen will likely explode in the oven. I tried two different fillings: raspberry and pineapple. Both were delicious. The pineapple jam was a particular treat and had nice chunks of pineapple in it. Living in Spanish Harlem, the local grocery stores carry more Mexican products than a typical store, but you may be able to find something similar on the International aisle of your local grocery store. Trader Joe’s also carries some unique seasonal jams so troll that aisle all year long and save stuff for hamentaschen season. Later, I would drizzle some salted caramel over some of these lil cookies. That was also delicious. (But when is salted caramel not?)
The recipe said the dough would be crumbly, but I didn’t find that to be the case at all. The original recipe called for a box of Duncan Hines yellow cake mix but I used white because it was all they had left at the store. I’m not sure if that’s why the dough was stickier than the recipe indicated (since I’m not really sure what the difference is between white and yellow cake mixes), but it could have been a factor. Overall, this recipe uses few ingredients, only gets one bowl dirty, and comes together very quickly. The slightly cake-like texture may not be the most traditional but it also means your hamentaschen won’t be dry, which is always the fear with these cookies. There’s also a slight birthday cake flavor to the dough but it’s not so overwhelming that it’ll compete with your filling flavors. That said, you could totally lean into it and add sprinkles and white chocolate for a full on birthday cake flavored hamentaschen.
Peaches to Apples 