Try this amazing recipe for Purim! These hamantashen will surely brighten up your festive table!
Rainbow Hamantaschen
makes 2-3 dozen cookies
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
8 oz. coconut milk
6 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp each red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple gel food coloring
1 egg, whipped (or cold water if you want this recipe to be completely egg free)
1 cup filling of your choice (apricot jam, raspberry preserves, chocolate chips, chocolate hazelnut butter, etc.)
In a stand mixer, I beat together the margarine and sugar then added the coconut milk and vanilla extract. You can use coconut oil in place of the margarine and it’a s 1:1 ratio. Just note that your hamantaschen will taste like coconut because of the oil. The coconut milk in this recipe does NOT make the hamantaschen taste like coconut. Once everything was combined, I slowly added the flour until the mixture was combined. I divided the dough in to 6 equally sized pieces. It’s okay if they are a little bit off since you will be layering them later anyways.
I dolloped an 1/8 teaspoon of gel food coloring on to each piece of dough. At this point, you can choose to do all six colors of the rainbow or you can have fun with just a few colors or even an ombre effect with one color. The skies the limit!
Wearing gloves, I kneaded each piece of dough to work the color in. This was definitely the most tedious part but totally worth it! But you definitely want to wear those gloves otherwise you will have rainbow hands to go along with your rainbow hamantaschen.
Next came the fun part! The layering. I lined a 9″x4″ loaf pan with a large piece of plastic wrap that hung over the edges then split each piece of dough in half. Starting with one of the red balls, I flattened out the piece of dough to the size of the pan with my hands and placed it on the bottom.
I did the same thing for each remaining color then began with the red again so I had two layers of rainbow dough (I sliced the dough in half so you could see the layers). I lightly pressed down on the dough to make sure the layers were all touching.
I wrapped the dough in the plastic wrap and froze it for 30 minutes. You can make this dough ahead of time and freeze for up to 3 months. When I was ready to make the hamantaschen, I preheated the oven to 375 degrees F. and lined two baking sheets with parchment paper. I removed the dough from the freezer and set it on the counter to warm up slightly for 5 minutes. With a sharp knife, I sliced the rainbow dough into 1/8 inch thick slices. The slices don’t have to be perfect but you definitely don’t want them to be too thick since each slice will become a hamantaschen.
I placed the rectangles of rainbow dough on the parchment lined baking sheets. I cut each rectangle with a circle cookie cutter and removed the excess scraps. Keep those scraps to create tie dyed hamantaschen.
I filled the center of each rainbow circle with around one teaspoon of filling. I chose apricot and raspberry preserves as well as chocolate hazelnut butter but you can choose whatever fillings you want. You might be tempted to overfill your hamantaschen because you think it will taste better but don’t do it! Those hamantaschen will just open while they bake.
I brushed the edges of the circles with the whisked egg then pinched together the edges to create a triangle. I baked each sheet of hamantaschen for 10-12 minutes, until lightly golden brown on the bottom. I transferred the hamantaschen to a wire rack to cool completely. And there you have it! Beautiful rainbow hamantaschen that look like art.
