Raisin-Walnut Challahtaschen
I’m not the biggest fan of hamantaschen, nor have I found the perfect recipe. (You can read about my travails at my red bean hamantaschen recipe.) But I am a fan of bread, so I decided to try this yeast dough hamantascchen recipe from Jamie Geller, cut down to experimental size, with a side of this filling from Sally Bernstein. It’s definitely an I-don’t-actually-like-hamantaschen base for more traditional fillings. Cheese would be an ideal filling, but that’s getting perilously close to a cheese danish instead of a hamantaschen.
As for the name, challah-taschen was apparently all the rage a few years back; they could also be savory and stuffed rather than sweet and filled.
Makes 36 cookies.
Ingredients
Dough
- 4 c. flour
- 2 ¼ tsp. yeast
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 1 c. lukewarm water
- 1 egg
- 6 tablespoons butter, margarine, or shortening
- ⅓ c. sugar
- zest of ¼ orange
- dash cardamom (optional)
Topping
- 1 egg, beaten
- powdered sugar (optional)
Filling
- 1 c. raisins
- ⅓ c. orange juice
- ¼ c. brown sugar
- ½ T. cinnamon
- dash salt
- ½ c. walnuts, chopped and toasted
- ½ T. lemon or lime juice
Directions
Dough
- Mix ingredients according to your preferred breadmaking method, optionally using a stand mixer and dough hook.
- Knead into a soft dough.
- Cover and let rise 1 ½ hours. (This is a good time to make your filling.)
- Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Roll out to ¼" thick.
- Cut into 3" circles or hexagons.
- Fill with a teaspoon of filling each. Be careful not to overfill with something that will boil over, like jam.
- Pinch or fold into the triangular shape.
- Place on cookie sheets, spacing them an inch apart.
- Brush with egg.
- Let rise 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Bake 20 minutes until golden.
- Optionally sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Filling
- If the raisins are hard, soak them in the juice.
- Prep the walnuts.
- Dice the raisins.
- Mix all ingredients but the walnuts and lemon/lime juice in a small pan.
- Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
- Lower heat and simmer about 8 minutes until thick.
- Add lemon or lime juice and cook 3 more minutes.
- Remove from heat and pan to a cold bowl.
- Mix in walnuts.
- Refrigerate until ready to use.
Variants
The original filling recipe was written for a food processor. I also totally forgot the lime juice step and omitted a lot of cooling.
Jam is the usual last-minute filling, but nutella is a good, if dairy and crumbly, option.
