Hamntaschen and Mishloach Manot!

Hello! This last Saturday marked my 11th week of "Blissful Baking", so I decided to do something a little festive. In honor of the Jewish holiday "Purim", which was on Sunday, I decided to make the people at PATH hamentaschen!! Hamentaschen are triangular shaped cookies with either a chocolate, strawberry, apricot, or poppyseed filling inside them. I thought it might be fun to make them cookies that Jews usually eat around this time so I can give them a taste of the Jewish holidays. Although, after thinking about it for a while, I thought it would be even better if I went a step further to make them mishloach manot! Mishloach manot are gift bags full of goodies that children exchange during Purim. I was so excited about this idea of making them hamentaschen and putting them in mishloach manot that I went to Ralph's an hour after I thought of the idea and got all the supplies! I bought a bunch of mini snickers, milky ways, mint candies, hershey kisses, licorice, as well as some plastic bags so I can put all of it together. In addition to giving them the cookies and candies, I thought it might be interesting if I put a note in each of their bags that explained to them what Purim is and why I'm giving them gift bags. When I went to PATH and gave Chanee their gift bags she looked really happy about what I brought for them so it was really worth it!

I was up at 9 am Saturday morning to make the hamentaschen and although I was really excited, I was also pretty nervous. I had made hamentaschen one time last year and they weren't that..um, tasty to say the least :/ But I really wanted to make them great hamentaschen and I knew that with the right recipe and precision I would be able to, so I searched for some recipes and I found one that I knew I could trust. It was from food network and it was put up by the chef Gale Gand who has a show called "Sweet Dreams". I saw the comments and everyone reviewed them as wonderful and delicious, so I decided to give it a shot. Here's the recipe just incase you'd like to try it:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/gale-gand/hamentaschen-recipe/index.html

So I made the hamentaschen and they turned out wonderful! I made about 65 total (with the help of my mom) and I gave the people at PATH 40 hamentaschen in gift bags so that all the residents and staff could enjoy some. I decided to make the extra 25 so I could give some to my family and friends.

Here are some pictures I took while baking:

I finished making the hamentaschen and mishloach manot by around 2 pm, so in total it took me about 5 hours but it was totally worth it. I'm so glad I was able to give the people at PATH something unique this week and I really enjoyed the whole process. I hope all of you had a great Purim and until next time, stay blissful!

Sincerely,
The Blissful Baker