hamantaschen

I was having company for breakfast and again for lunch on Purim, so I decided to make a bunch of hamantaschen with my spelt cinnamon roll dough. According to Jewish Cookery I erred in serving them with tea--the cookie variety goes with tea, while the yeasty buns should be served with coffee. They were a success nonetheless, so I thought I'd record how I made them so I can do it again next year.

There are bigger sections of bread uninterrupted by sweet filling in these than in cinnamon rolls, so I think next time I'll add a little more sugar to the dough, and maybe a little lemon zest. One recipe's worth of dough is sufficient to make eight hamantaschen. I doubled the recipe as I was serving them twice and hoped to have some left to take to work the next day, so I made two different fillings: apricot and poppy. The apricot filling was very easy to make--mix together equal parts apricot jam and grated apple. I invented the poppy filling and didn't write down the amounts, but here's the general method: soak poppyseeds in water overnight, then cook in soy milk with sugar, honey, cinnamon, and some raisins. add a little vanilla, and grind in a blender. If it's too watery, add some more raisins and grind some more.

Divide dough into eight equal portions, and roll each out into a thin disk. Put a blob of filling in the middle, and fold the edges in to form a triangle. Leave the center open so a little filling is peeping out. Bake at 350° for 17-20 minutes.

squash bread

I worked on Christmas, so had to bring something for our potluck. As I planned to spend most of Xmas eve day at Annie's, I needed to bring a dish that didn't take much time or advance preparation. I actually ended up taking two things--a pie made of leftover applesauce and cranberries from the previous week's latkes, and this very successful bread.



Squash Bread à la New York Times

makes one big loaf

800g all-purpose flour
300g pumpkin purée (I had it frozen, but canned would also be good)
400ml water
1t instant yeast (2g)
2t salt (15g)
200g raisins
150g chopped pecans
2t cumin seed
wheat bran

On the morning of the day before you plan to bake, mix everything but the bran together till there are no visible streaks of flour or squash remaining. Do a couple of stretch and folds over the next hour, then let it rise in a not-too-warm place till just before bedtime.

That night, scrape the dough onto a lightly floured counter and roughly shape it into either a round or oblong loaf, depending on what pan you plan to use to bake it. Generously cloak with bran, and set into an appropriately shaped dish (round bowl or oblong pan) sufficient to contain it when it's risen one and a half times and lined with a well-floured linen cloth. Rye flour, if you have some, has better non-stick properties than wheat. Put everything into a big plastic bag to prevent a skin forming prematurely on the loaf. If your house is warm at night, put in the refrigerator; otherwise, leave out on the counter.

When you get up preheat the oven to 425° with a 7 liter heavy, lidded casserole in it (I use this). If the dough's in the fridge, get it out and let it warm up. After an hour, carefully turn the loaf out into the hot pan, put the lid on, and bake for 25 minutes. Take the lid off and bake for another 25 minutes, or until its internal temperature is over 200° or it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Xmas cookies

This year I again made only seven kinds of cookies. I didn't get started on them till about a week before Christmas, so I couldn't make Aachener Printen or my favorite kind of Lebkuchen as they both require at least two weeks of aging to get non-leathery. From the top and working around clockwise, there are windmills, sugar cookies, Annie's favorite Lebkuchen (from Betty Crocker), Afghans, Linzer cookies (my fancy Linzer cookie cutter didn't work very well, and kept falling apart as I tried to cut the too-soft dough), lemon-pistachio wedding cookies (made from this recipe but with twice the sugar and a little lemon juice added), and in the center, Pfeffernüsse (with icing adapted from this icing recipe).