Hamentaschen (Dough)

A pastry dough recipe.

Ingredients

• 2c flour
  
• 2 sticks butter
  
• 8oz cream cheese
  
• 3tbsp sugar
  
• 1tsp vanilla
  

In a cuisinart (food processor, NOT a blender), add the flour and sugar and pulse once to mix. Add the butter and cream cheese, chopped into smallish pieces, along with the vanilla, and pulse until the the dough JUST sticks together. Don't overprocess. If you don't have a cuisinart, you'll need to cut the fat into the flour, which is just really annoying, so I guess what I'm saying is: don't not have a cuisinart.

Dump the (really quite loose) dough onto a piece of cling wrap. It'll be crumbly. Lump it together in the center of the cling wrap and, well, wrap it up. Then you can kind of press the dough together, turning the package of cling wrap & dough, until it resembles a disc. Don't overdo it. Put the dough into the fridge for at least 8 hours or overnight.

When you're ready to use it, take out the dough. Roll it out thin on a WELL floured surface with a well floured rolling pin. Cut the cookies, add your filling, and bake at 350 for 15-30 minutes, until browned.

Thoughts: My mother's recipe. This pastry dough is fantastic. We actually made hamentaschen AND a little pie using this dough, and it works well for any purpose. I think the cream cheese really makes it. It's tender and flaky. Just fantastic. My mother also recommends replacing the vanilla with the zest of one lemon. This is easily the best pastry dough we've ever made.

For fillings for our hamentaschen, we strayed from tradition a lot. For the first batch, we used a few types of jam mixed with blackberries and some lemon juice and sugar. We kind of boiled them with a little water and reduced until the blackberries were really soft and the mixture was adequate for filling. I think I may have added a little corn starch to encourage it. The next batch was sliced apples with cinnamon cooked down in a little water in the same pot as the previous batch, so they turned bright red. Third batch was (frozen) peaches and blackberries with a little brown sugar and lemon juice, again cooked down until the peaches were soft. My mother uses a recipe of dates processed with frozen orange juice (which is a fairly traditional recipe), and also one with almond paste, cream cheese, almond extract, and chocolate chips. But that's for another post / another hamentashen experience.

Disaster Index: 1/10