This is my best ever recipe for hamentashen for the Jewish holiday of Purim! They are super easy and simple to make and taste delicious every time!! If you are looking for the best hamentashen recipe to bake this year TRY THIS ONE!

This recipe is originally from a blog called NotDerbyPie that is unfortunately no longer updated!

TIPS! To make sure the hamentashen cookies keep their shape do these THREE THINGS!

1- Make sure they go into the oven COLD, if they’ve warmed up as you made them then pop the whole tray into the refrigerator to cool them back down before going into the oven.

2- PINCH! Pinch pinch pinch those corners tightly and use water on your fingertips to get the dough to stick together. It always looks its best shape before it goes into the oven, so if it’s not looking going in it’s really not going to look good coming out. That being said, if it looks like it’s homemade with love that’s good too!

3- DON’T overfill them, a little filling goes a LONG way!

• 2/3 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• pinch salt
• 2 cups (+extra for rolling out dough) flour

1. Preheat oven to 375 F and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Cream butter and sugar about 1 minute.
3. Add egg, vanilla and the zest of a half a lemon and mix for another minute.
4. In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, salt, and 2 cups of the flour.
5. Combine the dry and wet ingredients.
6. Gather dough into a flat disk, use extra flour on your hands to make sure the dough is not sticky. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate 30-45 minutes.
7. Sprinkle working surface with flour, and roll out dough to 1/8-inch thick.
8. Use a circle cookie cutter (about 2-3 inch. in size) to cut circles in the dough.
9. Lift each circle off the surface and place on baking sheet.
10. Drop about a tsp. of filling onto each circle.
11. Pinch the circle into a three cornered triangle. Use water on your fingertips if the dough isn’t sticking.
12. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 375 degrees, until the edges just start to brown.

The Hebrew month of Adar is full of joy and fun! I especially love the holiday of Purim and the month of Adar because that’s when my baby boy Corey was born. I’m sharing the BEST EVER hamentashen recipe and lots of creative ideas to make colorful and fun hamentashen and mishloach manot to send to friends and family. Making hamentashen and sharing them as gifts to others is an important part of the holiday of Purim as we do our best to share our joy with people who may need it, maybe even more than we know. Purim Sameach!