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This Meyer lemon curd hamantaschen recipe is not just about coming up with a hamentaschen that is actually, you know, good. It’s about my nostalgia for the lemon hand pies I used to buy at the supermarket as a kid. They were junky, sugary calzones, shelf-stable, filled with a too-sweet lemon custard, and I loved them. Either they disappeared or I’m shopping in the wrong aisles, but just as well: the loss spurred me to create these far better hamentaschen in their image.

For this Meyer lemon curd hamantaschen, I used my go-to lemon curd recipe from Amanda Hesser at New York Times Cooking and the Zabar’s hamentaschen dough that Bob Lefsetz turned me on to as “a revelation.”

Happy Purim!

Meyer Lemon Curd Hamantaschen

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Ingredients

  

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• extra flour for rolling out dough
• ½ cup sugar
• ¾ lb sweet butter
• 1 tsp grated lemon rind
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs

Instructions

 

Meyer Lemon Curd

• Meyer Lemon Curd First, make the lemon curd following Amanda Hesser’s recipe. (I’m not reposting it here because I’m not a thief.) The recipe makes about twice as much as you’ll need, so either halve it or be prepared to enjoy a lot of lemon curd.

Hamanschen Dough

• 2 eggs
• In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, and baking powder.
• Use cold butter, and chop it into as small pieces as possible.
• Add butter to flour mixture – add lemon rind, vanilla, and eggs and mix, using your hands, until dough forms a ball. You may have to add flour if the dough is very sticky. Cover the ball with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours (overnight is fine).
• Cut the ball of dough into quarters and roll out on a floured surface, until 1/4” thick. Cut the dough into even circles. I use a water glass to cut dough, but any 3”- 4” round cookie cutter will do.
• Fill the center of the circle with a scant one teaspoon of lemon curd filling and make three corners by pinching them together.
• Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment and refrigerate 30 minutes to overnight. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the cookie sheet and cool. Dust with powdered sugar.

Notes

The hamanschen dough recipe from zabars.com that makes rich, buttery hamentaschen, the kind that caused writer Bob Lefsetz to convert to Purim cookie-lover. Reposted with permission. I do all this in a food processor, but the recipe is for hands-on baking.