This is the final instalment of my hamentashen treatise (see part 1 and part 2). Today we’re taking it old-school with the classic Poppy Seed Hamentashen. This is the hamentashen I grew up with. This recipe comes from Uri Scheft. These are the most popular hamentashen at Lehamim, his Tel Aviv bakery.
Make sure you start with very fresh poppy seeds. You’ll need to grind them up a bit. I found that my spice grinder was perfect for the task. 
The poppy seeds get cooked down into a paste with some milk, sugar and butter. Lemon zest adds a perfect zing of freshness. 
I learned a great trick from Uri for keeping the hamentashen dough from getting soggy. A handful of cake or muffin crumbs absorb any moisture in the filling leading to hamentashen with a nice crisp bottom crust. I didn’t have any cake or muffin crumbs on hand, so I bought a package of 6 inexpensive white cupcakes at the supermarket, scraped off the icing and ground them up in the food processor to make crumbs. I let the crumbs sit out at room temperature for a few hours to let them dry out a bit. Extra crumbs can be stashed in a freezer bag for another day.
I found it easiest to fill hamentashen if I first put the filling into a disposable piping bag.
Click here to print recipe for Poppy Seed Hamentashen.
Hi Cindy, I’d never heard of Hamentashen, but these look great! Is the crust like a shortbread?Love the cupcake crumb trick to keep the pastry from getting soggy, btw. I bet you can use that trick for other baked goods, too 😉
Thanks Nila, yes, the crust is sort of a hybrid shortbread cookie-flaky pie crust.
The crumbs would be a great idea in apple or any fruit strudel or even in a fruit tart or galette.