How to Make Perfect Hamantaschen

Ready to learn how to make perfect hamantaschen? You can check out my triple chocolate brownie filled hamantaschen recipe here or continue for tips and tricks! This post contains affiliate links.

I’m not gonna lie: making hamantaschen is not for the faint of heart. It is a slightly more intricate project that gets spread across the counter and takes an afternoon. Not quite your “dump mix ‘n bake” recipe.

But it’s a longstanding tradition – and one that just doesn’t yield the same results when you buy it. In fact, I never liked hamantaschen at all – until I tasted the homemade variety, and then started making my own.

Today I’m going to be going over the tradition of Hamantaschen on Purim, as well as tips and tricks for yielding perfect batches, where all your hamantaschen look fabulous and stay closed.

Hope this helps!

Why Eat Hamantaschen on Purim?

Haman’s hat or his ears?

Hamantaschen translates in Yiddish to “Haman pockets” and is said to be reminiscent of Haman, the main antagonist of the Purim story’s triangular hat. In fact, you’ll see that any time I illustrate a Purim craft, like Purim puppets or megillahs, I make Haman with a kind of cushioned triangular hat with a bump in the center.

However, in Hebrew, they’re called “oznei Haman” – or Haman’s ears. And just think about it: the evil guy with the sneaky face -and triangular cushioned ears. So which is it? And why would we labor (of love) over cookies that are the evil dude’s presumed hat – or ears?

Various storied origins

The truth is, there are a number reasons for this, and a fusion of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi exiles mixing with the Mizrahi. You’ll find European and Middle Eastern influences, just like in much of middle easter cuisine.

There are sources that point to Haman’s pockets filled with bribes.

The most common Ashkenazi sources share that it’s from the Yiddish word for poppy seeds – mohn. Hamantaschen were originally baked with poppy seeds inside – and sometimes still are.

There are those that say it refer’s to Esther’s youth (seeds, fertility…)

Chabad.org shares that it can refer to Hatach who may have been the prophet Daniel, who was Esther’s loyal servant that served as a go-between between Mordechai and herself. It is said that he ate seeds when in the King of the House of Babylon.

In fact, Esther presumably subsided on beans and seeds as her source of protein as she tried to keep kosher while essentially being held captive in the palace.

Or, it may have been a pastry already eaten, but because “mohn” sounds like “haman” people fused it into Purim cuisine.

So in a nutshell: the Ashkenazi iteration of Hamantaschen is literally seed pocket pastries and the seeds have loads of symbolism for Purim. Chabad.org shares more reasons – I do encourage you to look through it if you want more, deeper meanings to hamantaschen, however for me, explaining to the kids that the source may have been the seeds that Esther (and maybe Daniel too) ate in the palace is spot on.

But what about the Sephardic “Oznei Haman” – Haman’s ears? Those were quite different – they were twisted, fried pastries (sometimes filled with nuts, etc) in the shape of ears. Those were most likely referring to Haman’s defeated ears (picture him with head bent, ears down) when he learned that Mordechai will be honored by the king and not him.

A fusion of tradition

As exiled Jew meets exiled Jew from across the world, our traditions blend. There is so much overlap despite having been separated by so many years and miles (think of the tradition of slow-cooked Shabbat foods).

I think that there must have been an original source of a Haman-inspired pastry from before the exile, perhaps even eaten at the time of the Hanukkah story. And then it separated and gained influence based on the local diaspora flavors. But I don’t have a source for that…

Just think of how many different Hamantaschen recipes and styles there are today. We make pizza ‘taschen and taco ‘taschen – and many others influenced by diaspora flavors, a true testament to our survival, and our ability to work with the hand that we were given.

And of course, they tried to kill us, and we won, so we need SOMETHING to eat.

Top tips for How to Make Perfect Hamantaschen

Choosing your dough recipe

To make hamantaschen, you have two components: the dough and the filling. And they do NOT need to come from the same recipe!

Personally, I’ve chosen a dough and then worked with different fillings when making hamantaschen in the past. Especially when using premade fillings (more on that below) it’s not that hard to make a spread with variety.

Some doughs need refrigeration before cooking so keep that in mind when looking for a recipe. This makes sure it doesn’t expand too much and fall apart.

Bakery hamantaschen usually have a cakey outside – and that’s probably why I never liked them. I personally prefer a crunchier cookie dough. And while that might not look as “bakery perfect” it’s quite tasty and definitely something you should try!

For years, I made Tori Avey’s Parve (non-dairy) dough for my sweet hamantaschen (no refrigeration needed), and then this year I tried this recipe too.

For savory, I often use premade doughs. These savory veggie hamantaschen are fabulous with a wonton wrapper dough (just eat them super fresh, and make them right before you put them in the oven).

I often use pizza dough rounds as well. They are not as easy to keep folded but they’re so easy to use.

Filling Choices

Hamantaschen fillings are almost an “anything goes” scenario. You can use so many different things, but test them first to make sure they work. Some things will expand and spill over (for example, I’ve had that happen with peanut butter).

Hamantaschen fillings can be savory or sweet – we’ve done pulled beef, fried pastrami, veggies as shared above, pizza (cheese and sauce)….

For sweet fillings, I usually use a premade filling (besides for the brownie version shared at the start of this post).

Some more favorites include (note: I always check for Kosher symbols in product listings and reviews – but double check me!)

Jelly bellies – this started as a joke when my son thought his Morah said that we put jelly beans inside instead of jelly. It’s not perfect but it works.
Lotus butter – I can’t make these anymore because I eat them all myself…
Nutella – or parve versions of the same.
OR Hashachar Cocoa spread (I used this in the photos of the white dough hamantaschen shared here)
Chocolate chips

Some more ideas that aren’t personal favorites but are common are:

Poppy seed paste – of course, this is the classic/original
Jam – I’m not a jam fan myself, but this is a pastry classic
Pie filling – these can be runny so beware
Lekvar (date/prune filling) is a traditional one

Putting it together

Start by choosing your favorite recipes for dough and then mixing it with a matching filling! You may not want to go full chocolate with a fruity filling, but it’ll be fabulous with Lotus.

You can use non-sweet doughs for sweet fillings to minimize the sweet a little, but be careful when choosing sweet doughs for savory fillings. It CAN work (think of a corned beef filling in a slightly sweet cakey dough). Just approach with caution.

Hamantaschen look like artisan pastries when you drizzle them or dip them. And they are much less effort than the hamantaschen themselves!

Try these:

Drizzle melted chocolate chips
Or mix in some peanut butter and drizzle that
I don’t love just drizzled PB but sometimes for a two-tone finish, I’ll drizzle chocolate and peanut butter in separate lines.
Dip one corner in chocolate – or chocolate with some peanut butter
Dip in chocolate then nuts
Dip in chocolate then cookie crumbs

The possibilities are truly endless.

Folding Styles – How to make sure they don’t unfold

The biggest question on how to make perfect hamantaschen is folding styles. You’ll spend a Sunday laboring over a big batch and half of them are hardly “pockets – more like pizzas!

The trick is simple: you want to do an overlap fold. You’re not pinching corners like many people do (and I used to). You want to fold it like you would the top of an open cardboard box: overlapping sides while alternating which one is on top.

However, with younger kids, especially less skilled ones, you’ll want to show them to pinch it. I recently made hamantaschen with my eight year old and his friends, as well as my four year old (don’t ask – I don’t recommend it…) and the best way was to show them to pinch it at the corners and let it hang half-open.

They felt that they made it themselves and that’s MUCH more important than making them perfect.

Another very important tip for making perfect hamantaschen is not to overfill the dough! This is probably the MOST common mistake. You want a marble size of filling – about half a heaping teaspoon (in that shape).

The Step by Step Tutorial for How to Make Perfect Hamantaschen

Note: the tutorial was recorded on a chocolate dough with brownie filling – the final hamantaschen is a vanilla dough with chocolate filling.

You’ll Need

Your favorite dough recipe
Your favorite filling
A circle cutter about 3-4 inches in diameter (a standard drinking glass should work)
A work surface (such as a baking mat)
Flour
A rolling pin
An APRON – yes, wear an apron for this!!

Process

Flour your surface evenly.

Roll out your dough to about 1/4 inch thick give or take.

Cut out circles as close together as you can. You’ll rework the extras, but each time you’ll be adding flour to the dough so it’ll eventually get too dry and crumbly. So try to fit in as many as you can in the first few runs.

Take the extra, roll it out again, and cut more circles, until you can’t anymore. I usually take that last bit, roll it into a ball, and flatten it to make one last hamantasch.

Place a small dollop of filling as dead center as you can. Do not overfill. I find that about half a rounded teaspoon works best.

Start by folding one side that covers about 1/3 of the circumference of the circle over the filling.

Bring the second side (another 1/3) over the filling so that the corner overlaps with the first.

Repeat with the third, but tuck the part that meats your first fold under that first folded side.

Gently press on each corner not quite enough to make an indentation, but enough to fix them together.

Bake according to dough instructions. With this process I get a near 100% success rate – I hope it works as well for you!

You’ve successfully learned how to make perfect hamantaschen? Comment below if you have any questions, tips, suggestions, or filling/dough recommendations!