With Hanukkah season in full swing, it is now time to bring out our favorite holiday goodie: Hanukkah gelt! This year, step up your Hanukkah dessert game by combining your favorite Purim food, hamentashen, with Hanukkah gelt! Combining two Jewish desserts into one creates a sugar explosion in your mouth unlike any other! This recipe is an easy way to wow your friends with your baking skills (not that this even requires serious culinary skills to make, but they don’t need to know that)! Trust me when I say that you won’t be able to stop yourself from eating the whole batch the second they come out of the oven.
Hanukkah Gelt Stuffed Hamentashen
Ingredients
Instructions
Mix the 4 cups of flour, baking powder, and salt (the dry ingredients) in a medium bowl using a whisk.
In a separate large bowl, blend the 2 sticks of butter and granulated sugar (the wet ingredients) using a hand mixer (or a Cuisinart if you have one). Beat the butter and sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy and the sugar is well incorporated, which takes about 5 minutes. Add in 2 of the 3 eggs one at a time while you are mixing the butter and sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl after you are done blending everything.
Using a low speed on the mixer (2 or 3), add in the dry ingredient mixture to the larger bowl with the wet ingredients and blend well, scraping the sides as you mix so that everything is combined.
Divide the dough in half and roll out 2 separate ¾ inch thick slabs of dough. Cover the slabs of dough with wax paper and let them chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and the longer you let it sit, the better the result. The dough can last in the fridge without being used for up to 2 days if you want to save it and bake it at a later time as well!
Remove the dough from the fridge. Preheat the oven to 375°. Let the dough sit for 30 minutes and then roll out the slabs on a surface using the remaining flour. The dough can be very sticky, so the more flour you use, the better. These new slabs should be roughly ¼ to ½ an inch thick depending on if you like your hamentashen to be more doughy or less so.
Using a 3-inch wide cookie cutter (or a cup of the same diameter), cut the dough into rounds. Reroll the dough, using all of it. In a small mixing bowl, whisk the remaining egg. Using a brush, dust the sides of the rounds with egg and place an unwrapped piece (or 2!) of Hanukkah gelt in the center of the circle. Fold up the sides of the dough one at a time to make a triangular shape. Once you have constructed all of the cookies and have placed them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, brush the outside of the hamentashen with more egg yolk.
Bake for 20 minutes until the hamentashen are golden brown on the edges, then remove and cool for 20 minutes. Dust the hamentashen with powdered sugar and plate them. You can store them in an airtight container for up to 5 days and eat them (but you’ll probably have eaten all of them the second they came out of the oven)!
So, during Hanukkah this year, gather with your friends and family around the menorah to light the glowing candles of the menorah. Then celebrate the festival of the lights with a present for the whole family: a freshly baked batch of Hanukkah gelt stuffed hamentashen!
Hhag Hanukkah Sameh!