TBB: Hamantaschen (for purim)

First I must apologise for not making these cookies into traditional triangular shape. Because all my cutters were kept so neatly away during CNY spring cleaning, that I had a hard time trying to locate the round cutters!  In the end, I only had the pineapple tart cutters on hand cos these were the ones I used during CNY to make pineapple tarts.

I made the Apricot Lekvar two days before making these. I was complaining about making apricot lekvar again on Facebook how the previous batch stayed in my fridge for 3 years and when I used up the last bit, I was very happy.  But in the end, after all theat complaining, I still made the Lekvar..LOL! Go figure. I was running a fever that day and high on flu meds. My helper was next to me and telling me that she will do it for me because she was worried I was stirring the pot and the pot was moving out of place, onto the edge and looked like it was going to fall off.  So I timed the timer and she stirred the pot for 20 mins.  I didn't take any photos because I was just too tired. 

I had high hopes for the pastry because of the unusual ingredients like Turbinado sugar and heavy cream. I was hoping that it will be my next shortcrust pastry to go for my pineapple tarts too.  

Blending the sugar, then the butter, flour...etc

Pour into bag and knead it..and wrap in plastic wrap to be refrigerated.

I got tired after trying to use this tiny flower cutter..took me forever and the dough was melting very fast at 1/16" thick. 

So I ended up using this other plunger normally used for pineapple tarts too...(i forgot what it is called!...) but here we call it Nestar shaped, I have no idea why though? This way also, I don't have to add additional flour to roll the dough. 

I added chocolate to my apricot lekvar hoping to add more flavor to it. I find apricot lekvar very bland on cookies (re Ishler), I like them on swiss roll but just not on cookies. So I thought adding some chocolate to it will make it look as if I had poppy seeds in them and everything taste better with chocolate isn't it?

So all these tiny pieces out of the oven. First batch I forgot to egg wash..and the second batch with egg wash looked prettier, more yellow and glossy. 

Honestly, I was very disappointed!! I'm a crust person, so crust is very important to me than the filling. But it tasted bland and had no buttery taste.  I mean our local pineapple tarts pastry just used simple ingredients like butter, icing sugar, cornflour, flour with simple mixing and taste so much better - soft and crumbly and melts in mouth, but with buttery taste. If we wanted milky, we add a little bit milk powder.  Sorry, I cannot help but compare because I was expecting more from this pastry recipe. 

And in case you were all wondering, chocolate didn't help the apricot lekvar. It still tasted pretty bland. :(  I was actually quite thankful that I didn't use up my pineapple jam for this recipe. Pineapple jam took me 3-4 hours to stir it down to a thick jam paste...so would have been wasted on a bland pastry.  

Overall: Bland. 

Nobody in my family really liked or dislike. 

They were like forgettable. 

and I was quite sad the whole day

...and didn't help that I was watching last 2 episodes of the Korean drama in which the father died of cancer.
I cried a lot that night.