Almond-Crust Hamantaschen

I didn’t grow up eating hamantaschen, and have never really acquired a taste for it. Sometimes they’re buttery, sometimes they’re made with vegetable shortening, sometimes with cream cheese. The fillings range from Nutella (kid pleaser), to apricot (traditional) to poppy seed (also traditional) to… feta cheese and beets (!) (described in this article).

Of course, with kids (and Dr. S), the preferred filling is chocolate, and even better if that spread comes in a plastic jar with hazelnuts on the side. My job was to make a double batch of dough, and this year, I settled on this recipe. It includes ground almonds, which makes for a slightly crumbly cookie with a pleasant nuttiness.

Our neighbour and my kids filled their cookies with Nutella, as well as with a melted chocolate and peanut butter mixture. My choice of filling came from this recipe using dried sour cherries. I replaced the raisins with more dried cherries, and omitted the optional walnuts. I gotta admit, these hamantaschen were pretty tasty. Everyone got to eat what they liked, so everyone was happy!