Hamantaschen

Most often I bake when I find a good recipe - whether it be from a cookbook, the paper, or on another blog - and it looks too delicious and amazing to pass up. Occasionally I'll plan ahead to make something, for a birthday, or per request from my dad; but most of the time of the time it's a spur of the moment decision, and during the week I try to juggle baking and homework. So as one could imagine, baking for homework was a wonderful change of pace.

In civics, as we've been studying Judaism, we partnered up and did a project on Jewish holidays. My partner and I didn't get any of our top three choices, instead we were assigned Purim. At first we were both a bit hesitant, having never heard of the holiday before, but we soon found out that it's known as the most festive and joyous holiday on the Jewish calender. And, get this, it comes with it's own cookie. Hamantaschen, meaning "Haman's ears" or "Haman's pockets", are best explained by the story of Esther, the event commemorated by the holiday Purim.

Esther was a beautiful Jewish woman who, after winning a beauty contest, was married to the king of Persia, King Ahasuerus. The king was not aware that Esther was a Jew, as her guardian, a Jewish leader named Mordecai, had advised her to keep this from him. The king's prime minister, Haman, hated Jews, despising Mordecai especially for refusing to bow down to him. Haman went to the king, and convinced him that the Jews needed to be eliminated from his kingdom. Once Haman was given permission to do as he saw fit, he made arrangements for the Jews to be massacred, and built a gallows where he planned to hang Mordecai.

When Mordecai discovered this he convinced Esther to talk to the king about Haman's plans. At the time, for Esther to go to King Ahasuerus without being summoned was serious crime that was punishable by death. Nevertheless she approached the king, and told him her story. Hearing of Haman's terrible plan, King Ahasuerus was furious, and he had Haman hanged in the very gallows he had built to hang Mordecai. 

Even though Haman was killed, the king's orders had already been given so the massacre could not be stopped. So King Ahasuerus gave the Jews permission to fight back, and on the 13th day of Adar they fought.  

Gingersnaps

As a kid, gingersnaps were a favorite treat of mine. They were right up there with the animal crackers that came in the little cardboard zoo boxes that I would swing around the grocery store by its string handle. We bought bags of gingersnaps often; the cookies were great as a small dessert or an extra special snack.

But as I got older we bought other kinds of of cookies at the store and my love of gingersnaps began to fade.  

By 7th grade I didn't care much for those crunchy cookies. I remember we had a party in math class with the normal array of sweets and junk food.  One girl brought in a small yellow bag: Mi-Del gingersnaps. I didn't touch them.

I didn't hate gingersnaps; I just wasn't interested. They were left forgotten among a variety of more popular name-brand cookies.

But when I came across a recipe for gingersnaps from Elissa at 17 and Baking which she had dubbed her "favorite cookie EVER" I decided to give gingersnaps another chance. With such high praise for the cookies I was eager to once again embrace the spiced cookie of my childhood.

Not surprisingly, these homemade gingersnaps were much nicer than any kind we used to buy at the grocery store. Which made me think - had I been eating warm, spiced gingersnaps from the oven I don't believe that I ever could have lost interest.