Khamentashn poppy-bird cherry and chocolate-almond

Category: Bakery products

Ingredients
Dough for poppy-bird cherry
flour	400 g
sugar	100 g
baking powder	1 tbsp. l.
salt	0.5 tsp
butter	200 g
eggs	2 pcs
milk	2 tbsp. l.
1 yolk + 1 tbsp. l. milk (for coating)
Filling:
ground poppy	0.5 stcn
milk	0.5 stcn
honey	0.5 stcn
bird cherry (flour)	0.5 stcn
Dough for chocolate almond
flour	300 g
cocoa powder	50 g
almond flour	50 g
sugar	100-150 g
baking powder	1 tbsp. l.
salt	1/2 tsp
butter	200 g
eggs	2 pcs
milk	2 tbsp. l.
bitter almonds	10 pieces
or almond extract	1/4 tsp
Filling:
soft dried apricots	250 g
almond paste	100 g
lemon
sugar to taste

Cooking method

Another favorite recipe with a berry - I would like to write "Siberian", but in fact it is widespread even in Africa ...
Here I combined two of my favorite fillings - poppy and bird cherry. The result not only pleased - delighted and conquered !!!
And the idea to introduce bird cherry into the hamentash recipe was born when I admired the cookies on Ain's blog - surprisingly bright and temptingly delicious even in the photo!
And following Ayn's example, she decided to show two of these holiday cookies together. They are so different ... and so delicious ...
Khamentashn poppy-bird cherry
1. Dough
Mix all dry ingredients - flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.
Grate cold butter (from the freezer) into the flour mixture on a coarse grater, mix everything into crumbs. In a bowl, whisk the eggs and milk lightly with a whisk, add the butter and flour crumbs and mix.
Put the dough on the table, collect in a lump, flatten it into a flat cake with your palm and fold it in half (the dough will crumble), continue to level and fold 5-6 times; if the dough is too dry add milk.
Divide the dough into two parts, form a flat cake out of each piece and wrap in foil. Put in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, or longer.
2. Filling
Mix pounded / ground poppy seeds and bird cherry flour and pour over hot milk, add honey and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until slightly thickened (5-10 minutes). Refrigerate.
The filling should be juicy.
3. Preheat oven to 180 ° C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.
Roll out the dough 5 mm thick, sprinkle with flour. Cut out 7-8 cm circles with a glass or a mold. Put 1 tsp in the middle. fillings and stick the edges together well, forming a triangle and leaving a small hole in the middle.
Place cookies on a baking sheet at a distance of 3 cm from each other, brush with yolk.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.
Cool and sprinkle with icing sugar.
Khamentashn chocolate almond
1. Filling
If dried apricots are very sweet, without a hint of sourness, then it makes sense to add lemon: cut it into several pieces, remove seeds. Fold the filling ingredients into a food processor and smooth.
My dried apricots were not sugary sweet, had a slight sourness and I did without lemon and sugar.
Almond paste can be replaced with peeled almonds (so that the color of the filling remains clean, amber-apricot) and ground almonds into flour.
And sugar - to your taste.
2. Dough
Mix all dry ingredients - flour, cocoa, ground sweet and bitter almonds, sugar, baking powder, salt.
Grate cold butter (from the freezer) into the flour mixture on a coarse grater, mix everything into crumbs.
Mix eggs with milk and almond essence - if you are using it, not bitter almonds. Add the mixture to the flour and mix until the dough starts to form into a ball (At this stage, the dough should crumble a little. You can also make the dough using a food processor. In general, the dough and filling can be prepared 1 or 2 days before baking).
3. Put the dough on the table, knead a little, divide into two parts, form a flat cake out of each piece and wrap it in foil. Put in the refrigerator for cooling, at least 1 hour, or longer.
It is convenient to roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper.
If the dough becomes too soft during rolling, refrigerate it.
Cut out 6-8 cm circles with a glass or a mold.
Put 1 teaspoon of filling, stick the edges together well, forming a triangle and leaving a small hole in the middle.
Place the cookies on a baking sheet at a distance of 3 cm from each other.
Bake for 15-18 minutes at 180 ° C.

Note

There are not very many recipes with bird cherry, and even less for my taste (well, I don’t like cakes and muffins with bird cherry in the dough ... what can you do if you’ve got used to the rich, concentrated taste from childhood - in the form of filling in pies ...)
Therefore, I am very grateful to Ain that her photos inspired me to experiment with poppy filling! Before that, I never thought that bird cherry would play like that with shortbread dough!

And I apologize for the stylistic complacency when choosing names for the hamentash
I deliberately used different "reference points": in the poppy-bird cherry - the filling, and in the chocolate-almond - the dough.
I would like to emphasize in each name the brightest taste sensation.
In the first, it is certainly the filling, and the dough is just a canvas on which the flavor colors of poppy and bird cherry blossom.
Secondly, the taste buds get the main pleasure from the chocolate-nut dough, slightly tinted with apricot filling.

And if you are interested in the recipes with which my mother delighted and surprised me from childhood, take a look here: