The Jewish holiday, Purim, was a few weeks ago, from sundown on February 28 until sundown on March 1. Purim celebrates the time when the Jewish people were saved from Hamen, who wanted to kill everyone in one day. In addition to dressing up and reading the megillah, it is customary to bake Hamantaschen. Hamantaschen are triangular shaped cookies that are filled with either fruit or chocolate.
This year, my first in college, my friends and I wanted to celebrate together since we could not be at home. One of my friends is gluten-free, so we could not use my trusted recipe. We found a gluten-free recipe online, and with some modifications, we successfully made a batch of Hamantaschen in a dorm kitchen.
Original Recipe
Check out Elana’s recipe, the original gluten-free recipe, here.
Our Modified Recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons syrup
½ cup water
½ cup raspberry shortening
Brown sugar (to top)
We followed Elana’s instructions, except that we had to increase the baking time to about 10 minutes per tray due to cooking at high altitude (6,000 feet). We also topped half of the Hamantaschen with brown sugar right before they went into the oven. It added a nice sweetness to the Hamantaschen when they came out of the oven. The brown sugar went well with the raspberry jam filling.
The Results
The Hamantaschen did not get as golden-brown as we would have liked, but they still tasted good. They did not taste exactly the same as other Hamantaschen I have made, but they were quite tasty. Our friends who had never tasted Hamantaschen enjoyed them too. A few fell apart, but that was not surprising, given the lack of gluten and spontaneously modified recipe.
In the Future
It was a bit difficult to work with such a modified recipe. We had to mix the dough for longer than we expected and had to add more water than planned to make it sticky enough. I would like to try more gluten-free recipes to see if any are easier. Still, it was not as much of a challenge as we had expected to make them gluten-free. While I will always be a gluten-loving chef, it is nice to be able to modify a recipe to include friends who have different dietary needs than myself.