My grandpa Joe was Jewish. His mother, my great grandma, Esther Lieberman, apparently made really delicious poppy seed hamantaschen. I never had her cookies. When I was growing up, my dad would stop by Cecil’s Deli in the Highland Park neighborhood of Saint Paul to buy poppy seed hamantaschen to bring home. It was always a really special treat. There are no words for how delicious these cookies are. Seriously. Drive there now and buy one. You’re welcome.

You can imagine how excited I was to find the article below in grandma’s recipe box! Is it possible I could make the flying unicorn of delicious cookies!? Well… I will save you the suspense of wondering and tell you that this recipe is a total flop. They are not the cookies of my dreams. But I am now on a quest to recreate Cecil’s hamantaschen. I might start here next (this blogger gives a GREAT history of this amazing food).

In case you want to re-create my horrible disappointment, here’s the recipe!

I would bet money that Cecil’s makes their poppy seed filling from scratch. I’m going to try that next time. For now I used the standard Solo poppy seed filling. It’s overly sweet and filled with corn syrup. But it tastes like every poppy seed coffeecake you’ve ever bought.

The recipe called for the juice and zest of two oranges and one lemon. I only had clementines, so decided to use four. I didn’t remember tasting citrus in my Cecil’s hamantaschen, but I humored the recipe.

The recipe also called for Crisco, which meant I had a chance to whip out the WONDER CUP (hear angels singing, dang this kitchen gadget is amazing).

Finally, after mixing up your dough, track down your nearest cute toddler to help roll out the dough. Or don’t. They really can’t help themselves from putting their fingers in your perfectly round cut outs, which really does make forming perfect little cookie hats pretty tricky.

I have these awesome biscuit cutters. I used the 3 inch and change one. Roll your dough to 1/8th of an inch. My dough was WAY too wet. I added flour until it seemed manageable. I also refrigerated the dough for a couple of hours. It was still pretty difficult to work with.

Here we are with the filling. I used a tablespoon as my poppy seed scoop.

Here are my somewhat not perfect hats. Notice they look nothing like Cecil’s.

When I ran out of poppyseed filling I decided not to open a second can. Instead, I filled them with chocolate and peanut butter chips. They’re fine. They didn’t melt. It’s a decent vehicle for eating chocolate and peanut butter chips.

Here are my final cookies. They are fine. They are nothing special. The search continues.

When I got to the end of the dough and couldn’t cut out 3 inch circles any more, I used a small biscuit cutter to make little cookies. I thought they’d be perfect for my 2 year old. I put a few more of the chocolate and peanut butter chips in. They are actually a pretty good toddler cookie. Not too sweet.

If I were actually taking the time to THINK about this, I probably should have grabbed some dried cherries and walnuts out of the cupboard instead. It would have gone better with the slightly citrusy dough– almost like a little scone.

In fact, I think these little toddler cookies with fruit and nuts might be the only reason I would pull out this recipe again.

Poppy Seed Hamantaschen

1 Cup Shortening

1 Cup Sugar

4 Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

Juice and part of rind of two oranges

Juice and part of rind of one lemon

1 Teaspoon Salt

4 Cups Flour

4 Teaspoons Baking Powder

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time. Then add vanilla, orange, and lemon. Combine dry ingredients separately. Add to wet ingredients.

Roll out dough on a floured surface to 1/8th of an inch thick. Cut dough into 3 inch circles. Place filling in the center and fold edges together to form a tri-cornered hat. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.