Welcome to the Free Recipe of the Month!
Each month I feature a free recipe for visitors and regular subscribers. Once the month has passed, the recipe is retired into the BB Recipe Archives. So bake while the oven's hot! These recipes are only here and free for four short weeks.
The free recipe-of-this-month is Best Ever Apricot Hamantashen
Apricot Hamantashen
I always use all-butter for these but some people want a pareve or non-dairy dough so in that case, swap in shortening. (I also have an oil-based traditional hamantashen recipe in my Jewish baking book). This is my most favorite hamantashen dough with my favorite filling. Make sure the apricots you use are Californian. I get mine from Bella Vista Orchards or nuts.com.
Apricot Filling
3/4 cup water orange juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 cups dried apricot halves
1/3 cup sugar
Dough
1/2 cup unsalted butter or shortening
1/2 cup unsalted butter or unsalted margarine
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4 cups (approximately) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Finishing Touches
Egg wash
Sugar (regular or coarse) for dusting (optional)
For the filling, place water (or orange juice), lemon juice, apricots in a 3 quart saucepot on low to medium heat. Toss and stir often - 8 to 12 minutes. Add water if mixtures appears to be drying or thickening too quickly.
Remove saucepan from stove and let mixture cool for about 5 minutes. Place mixture in a food processor and process to make a paste. Add additional water or orange juice if mixture requires thinning. Taste mixture and add additional sugar (a tablespoon at a time) if required. (Refrigerate up to two weeks or freeze up to six months). If chilled filling is too stiff to spread, loosen with some warm water or juice.
For the Dough, in a large mixer bowl, cream the shortening, butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and blend until smooth. (If mixture is hard to blend or seems curdled, add a bit of the flour to bind it). Fold in flour, salt, and baking powder and mix to make a firm but soft dough. Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and pat into a smooth mass. Cover and let rest ten minutes. Divide dough into two or three flattened disks. Work with one portion at a time. Wrapped in plastic, dough can be refrigerated for 2-3 days. If refrigerating, allow dough to warm up before rolling out. For frozen pastries, bake without defrosting.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Roll out dough on lightly floured board to a thickness of 1/8th inch. Use a 3 inch cookie cutter and cut into rounds. Brush rounds with egg wash. Fill with a generous teaspoon full of desired filling. Draw three sides together into center. Grasp perimeters of circle with your first, second and third fingers and pull inward. You should now have a three-cornered or triangular pastry. Essentially, fold two sides towards the center to form a triangle top. Fold up the remaining dough towards the center to meet the other edges of the touch. Brush pastries with egg wash. If desired, sprinkle with regular or coarse sugar and bake until golden brown, about 18-25 minutes.
Recipe doubles well.
About 2-3 dozen pastries
Italian S Cookies
These are the quintessential dipping cookies –they are buttery, crunchy without being hard and take well to so many finishes. I either dust them with confectioners’ sugar or a fondant and sprinkles which kids love! I use Boyajian Lemon Oil in this recipe as well as fresh lemon zest.
1 cup sugar
Zest of one lemon, finely minced
¾ cup unsalted butter, melted
4 eggs
2 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon pure lemon oil extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Finishing Touches
Egg wash
Fondant
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Cream as needed
Colored sprinkles
In a mixer bowl or food processor, blend the sugar and lemon zest. Then add in the butter and combine to make a fluffy mixture. Add in the eggs, cream, vanilla and almond extracts mixing well and then fold in the flour, baking powder and salt to make a soft but rolleable dough. Cover and refrigerate 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, stack two baking sheets together and line the top one with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 F.
For the egg wash, beat an egg and set aside. For the Fondant, blend the confectioners’ sugar with the vanilla, enough cream to make a glaze.
On a lightly floured work surface, form about a third of the dough at a time into a long rope that is ¾ inch thick. Cut in lengths of six inches and shape into an ‘S’. Place on baking sheet. Brush with egg wash. Bake 18-20 minutes until lightly browned. Once cooled somewhat, dust with confectioner’s sugar or glaze with fondant and dust on sprinkles. Let set.
Makes 12-18