Alpha Bakers -- Hamentaschen



Chag Sameach. Purim. That holiday of costumes, noisemakers, bad jokes, drinking, and miracles. Or sheer blind chutzpah. And tiny little triangular cookies.
My go-to hamentaschen recipe, saved from a million Purim carnival bake-a-thons in my teens, has orange juice, so the only change I made to Rose's recipe, which is a soft, buttery sugar cookie dough, was to added about one and a half tablespoons of powdered Meyer Lemon zest, leftover from the posset. The flavor effect was subtle.

For fillings this time around, I went with prune butter and the pear jelly I got last week, and I made very small cookies. My teen book discussion group approved.

Alpha Bakers - Lemon Posset Sponge

A quick and easy recipe this week--or at least easy. One sponge cake (let's not kill ourselves and call it shortcake), covered in a quick lemon cream. Right up my street. A few special things:

1. The sponge included brown butter. Brown butter is a very good idea. Deb over at Smitten Kitchen tends to suggest brown butter even when it isn't called for. Since I have some leftover, I will probably take her advice soon.

2. The sponge is brushed with lemon syrup and then with apple jelly. There was no apple jelly to be had at the approximately 17 gourmet stores and delis near me, so I settled for pear. Pear jelly is also a very good idea.

The recipe was for individual sponges, but my Maryann pan is a single, and I was taking it to work anyway, so I just made the one. I had a few flour balls in the bottom but just picked them out with a knife tip.

3. Posset is fun. Posset is all of the medieval children's books I used to read. Posset is nursery sponge and jam and mysterious things people in books eat that I never really knew were things. Posset is just cream thickened with, in this case, sugar and Meyer lemon juice. Posset posset posset. Drink your posset. Posset is fun. My posset was creamy and nice, and a little mild for my taste. Regular lemons next time.

Wineberry Jelly

Some people like glittery bars and high heeled shoes on their birthdays. I seem to be making a tradition out of getting as dirty as possible when mine comes around. Last year, beach grilling, and marshmallows in my hair. This year, a horrible dash for a train to Connecticut (all thanks to Matt for not killing me right there in Grand Central as I decided to weep instead of sensibly making the last minute dash for tickets as the train waited patiently), was followed by an idyllic day with Carrie and Nick in East Haddam and related environs.

Not only did we get to explore a ridiculous un-castle, built by the man who pioneered Sherlock Holmes on the stage and used phrases such as 'blithering sapheads' in his will, but we got to follow that with an immediate dash to a steamy sweaty bit of swampy ground, where we fulfilled the summer desires of my heart picking wineberries.
Matt took a short break from picking to photograph me wrestling with a big sticky patch.
Yes, we checked diligently for ticks afterward, and look, we sprayed!

Carrie and Nick, generous souls they are, let us take home more than our fair share of our mediocre bounty.
As soon as we had lived through the long train ride home, I put all the berries in a pot, heated and juiced them, and the next day mixed them with a little pectin to make jelly. Three jars.
I'm still a nervous canner, and the jars sealed but then grew cloudy, and I definitely put in too much pectin, as the jelly was stiff, but it is definitely good. Luckily, another one of my birthday presents was a gift certificate to The Brooklyn Kitchen. Maybe I'll take a canning class. Thank you infinitely, Carrie, Nick, and Matt, for such a wonderful birthday.