Purim!

Back in May 2007, when the Holiday post beow originally ran, this blog was new to the world and I was new to making Hamantaschen with agave nectar. What I learned was that too much coconut flour (used as a way of dealing with too much liquid in a recipe) can make a dough go very stiff. But when life hands me challenges like the one shown in the little movies below, I just make star cookies.

Note to vegans: While looking into veganizing this recipe, I found a very helpful posting at the Post Punk Kitchen that says you can use the dough for their Fig Not-Ins (from Vegan With a Vengeance) as a base instead. However, that uses regular sugar instead of agave nectar. It will require some food science to nail this one down, but I'm up for the challenge! It just might take place after graduation in May.

(By the way, whenever I see these old videos, I laugh at two things -- my wacky presentation style and my old kitchen. I really need to film the next Altered Plates blog post and bring my filmmaking into the next decade!)

Here's hoping you have a wonderful holiday and enjoy this original post from May 28, 2007:

The Hamantaschen That Became Stars

Here's a 15-minute short film in three parts on my experience re-doing hamantaschen from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion. The dough didn't turn out to be pliable to fold into the traditional shapes, so I made cut cookies instead. Regardless, they were a huge hit.

Recycling: Moosey Hamantaschen

This is the first time I've ever recycled a post, but seeing how it's Purim time, I thought those of you who celebrate, might appreciate the blog post below. FYI, I didn't publish the recipe as I made it, but I will be remaking these soon and publishing a full recipe since I anticipate major changes.



I've written and tested hamantaschen recipes before, but had yet to achieve the buttery crispness found in the bakery cookies I ate in my youth. That is, until I tried altering the Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant hamantaschen recipe for agave nectar.

The cookies shown above are the result of my efforts. I made these while cooking another recipe, so I didn't make one of my short films about the experience. However, I can tell you that I only used half the recipe and made about 24 tasty cookies.

My alterations to the recipe included 1/2 cup coconut flour for part of the all-purpose flour called, 1 cup of agave for the sugar, 2 teaspoons pineapple juice for the orange juice, and a completely different set of fillings.

For the fillings, I used a base of chopped dried tart cherries and dried apricots. I hydrated these and drained them, then pureed them. I divided the puree in half, then mixed each with a different fruit-sweetened mixed fruit spread, respectively. One was a peach spread, while the other was this amazing concoction from Trader Joe's with pomegranate in it.

Both were wonderful foils for the buttery cookie. However, I plan to try this recipe again, substituting more coconut flour for the ap flour and using a poppyseed filling. I've had a bag of Pensey's poppyseeds in my cabinet for a few months mocking me. So, it's time to use them.

Just a tip for creaming butter with agave, make sure that the butter's softened to almost mush. It incorporates much better that way, and even gets to a nice, fluffy consistency quite easily with the stand mixer.