Rhubarb Hamantaschen

The flavour of this cookie is amazing….tart rhubarb jam with a crisp almond cookie.

I made the jam from rhubarb I’d bought in the spring and frozen; Ontario had a very poor crop this year and the stalks were on the green side so my jam was more of a peachy-pink shade than the pretty ruby colour pictured in the book.

The pastry was the most difficult dough of any type I’ve ever worked with. I weighed all of my ingredients and made it by hand. It was so dry that it never came together, even after kneading as instructed. I considered adding water, not one of the ingredients in the dough, but felt I’d already worked it too much and was concerned that it would be very tough.

Rolling it out was an exercise in frustration as it kept cracking and scraps wouldn’t come together to be re-rolled. My yield was 28 instead of 30 cookies but I did throw quite a bit of dough out, not something I usually do.

Remarkably, the cookie was light and crisp and if it was tough/dry, you didn’t notice because of the moist jam filling. I’m going to give the recipe the benefit of the doubt and assume the problem with the pastry was mine “ ingredients or technique “ but I think I’ll just find a different almond cookie dough to use with this jam.