FROM OUR RECIPE BOX – Dried Plum, Cream Cheese and Walnut Tassies

We conceived of these lekvar and cream cheese-filled cookies as something for Rosh Hashanah to bring a sweet start to the Jewish New Year. But they will be just as welcome at a tailgate party or on an autumn picnic. Serve them with a cup of strong tea or even a glass of Sherry for dessert. (Try this recipe with any of our Schmears™ or our Poppy Seed Filling.)

Dried Plum, Cream Cheese and Walnut Tassies

A tassie is a small tart tin, like a mini cup cake pan with sloped sides. Popular in British cooking, tassie pans are ideal for jam tartlets such as Bakewell Tarts or Swedish almond Mazarins. You can find these pans at specialty stores but mini muffin tins work just as well.

Here’s the recipe for Dried Plum, Cream Cheese and Walnut Tassies.

FROM OUR RECIPE BOX – Orange Poppy Seed Shortbread Tart

We’re always hunting for versatile recipes, customizable to suit a whim or an

Orange Poppyseed Shortbread tart

ingredient on hand.  Here’s one inspired by the recipe for Hungarian Shortbread in the cookbook Baking with Julia.  It is a buttery, soft shortbread dough.  We’ve sandwiched it with Love’n Bake Poppy Seed Filling.  There is no rolling involved.  Instead you grate the dough right into the pan then pat it down into an even layer.

The filling combinations are endless.  You could use lemon zest in the dough or add a ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon, allspice or cardamom.  You can change up the fillings; Love’n Bake Almond, Chocolate or Cinnamon Schmear work well.  And you can layer the fillings such as almond with raspberry preserves or chocolate with apricot jam.  Even dabs of cream cheese on top of a filling like our Prune Lekvar would work well.

The dough freezes well as does the baked pastry.  Keep one on hand for that unexpected guest.

Here is the Orange Poppy Seed Shortbread Tart recipe.

FROM THE RECIPE FILE – Hamantaschen

Hamantaschen

The joyous festival of Purim, a Jewish celebration of survival begins at sundown on February, 27th 2010 (Saturday). It ends at sundown on February, 28th 2010 (Sunday).  Among the favorite foods of the festival are Hamantaschen. A traditional pastry of the feast, hamantaschen is a delicious triangular-shaped dough bursting with poppy seed filling. (We like it with our Prune Lekvar and the Chocolate Schmear is also delicious in this dough.) 

The dough for these flaky cookies is easy to make. Enlist a friend or two to help roll out and fill the little triangular shapes before baking.  

For the Hamantaschen recipe, click here.