Wheat-free * Dairy-free * Gluten-free * Vegetarian *  Parve~~~

It’s Purim so it’s Hamantashen Time (to learn more see the original hamantashen post).  Last year’s were really good but the dough did have a hint of coconut (not a bad thing) and I wondered if I could make them with a more neutral flavored fat.  I recently purchased organic shortening;  I practically never use shortening in my cooking but I have fond memories of my friend Suzy’s mom, Rose, baking brownies with shortening and frying French fries in it.  Both tasted great.

So, this year I made my hamantashen dough using the shortening.  It blended into the other ingredients much better than the coconut oil had…if you look closely at the old photos you’ll see little white spots in the dough – that’s the unblended coconut oil.  This dough has none of that.

However, the dough came out much softer than the one made with coconut oil.

In practical terms that means when you divide the dough in half and pat it into a disk, you have to cover the dough with a second piece of wax paper and pat the wax paper to make the disk, then refrigerate at least 1 hour until dough firms up.

To roll the dough: dust the disk with oat flour then spread it all over; place between 2 pieces of wax paper and roll it out.

And because the dough is soft, after you’ve cut out the circles; move them from the wax paper to the baking sheet using a spatula and use the spatula to help lift the sides to make the triangle shapes

The end result was very very good and worth the extra effort.

These are mini hamantashen, you can use a bigger biscuit cutter to make normal sized cookies, you’ll just end up with fewer.

The recipe from last year follows.

Happy Purim
Continue reading Gluten-free Dairy-free Hamantashen (or Hamentashen) Revisited →