Baklava Hamantaschen

Baklava Hamantaschen


“Good, better, best; never let it rest till your good is better and your better is best.” 

Have you ever heard that quote before? Well I don’t know who came up with it, but it should be my motto. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been trying to outdo myself. It’s like I’m in competition with me. And the funny thing is, I’m not even a competitive person. I couldn’t care less what the next person is doing. I just want to outdo ME.

Nothing brings this out more than Purim. I spend an entire year thinking about what kind of crazy, amazing. blow-your-mind kind of idea I can come up that will outdo what I’ve done the year before. Since last year’s sushi hamantaschen were such a huge hit, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It had to be a twist on a classic, a creative reversal of the expected, and it had to resemble hamantaschen. Not an easy feat, I tell you!

I surfed pinterest for inspiration, flipped through cookbooks for ideas and wracked my brain until I hit the finger-‘lickin jackpot. BAKLAVA HAMANTASCHEN – oh. em. gee.

To really capture the spirit of the story of Purim (set in Persia in the year 3392), I turned to a classic Persian recipe: baklava. Traditional Persian baklava uses a combination of chopped almonds and pistachios spiced with cardamom and a rose water syrup. Since I really wanted to turn things upside down (VeNahafoch Hu, right?), I switched up the rose water for apricot jam syrup (a’ la classic hamantaschen) and cut my baklava into true hamantasch shapes. The result is a decadent sweet and adorable treat that will be the talk of your Purim seudah!

Now if you’re the type who doesn’t mess with tradition, you may go ahead and prepare your baklava a’ la classique, rose-water syrup and all. Just make sure to cut them into hamantasch shapes, to really capture the Purim spirit.

Now tell me, how on earth will I outdo myself next year?!


1 year ago: sushi hamantaschen (onigiri)
2 years ago: savory puff pastry hamantaschen

Post a Comment

25 thoughts on “Baklava Hamantaschen

  1. What an ingenious idea to look for persian influences:)

    The picture tutorial is great and it sure looks like very precise work.

  2. I’m busy scraping my jaw off the floor. My mother-in-law would LOVE this. I’m thinking about using it for the seuda dessert as contrast to the hamentaschen we’ll get in shalach manos.

  3. This really is amazing. I don’t think you can out do yourself next year because it looks to me like your “better is best” already. Wow.

  4. Wow! My mom used to rolls finger sized logs of Baklava but great idea to turn it into a Purim dessert!!! Thank u!!

  5. These are too beautiful too cut! And I love the apricot syrup in place of the regular rosewater or honey. I will try apricot flavor for baklava next time I make it, I usually flavor it with orange, but this sounds even better.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *