";

Grain Free Hamantaschen Cookies for Purim

circular cookie cutter dough

Paleo Hamantaschen Cookies for Purim from The Food Lovers on Vimeo.

Over the holidays my mom put in a request for us to make grain free hamantaschen for her. Hamantaschen is a pastry traditionally served during the Jewish holiday of Purim. “Hamantaschen” is the Yiddish word meaning “Haman’s pockets.” Haman is the villain in the Purim story. Jews eat hamantaschen on Purim as part of the celebration to remember how Jews escaped Haman’s evil plans.

Find our Latest Recipes on

hamantaschen dough

 

arrowroot powder

My mom’s family is Jewish, my dad’s is not. Although I do have family on my mom’s side that practice Judaism, my immediate family doesn’t much. Everyone seems to be married to a Christian! I grew up celebrating all Christian holidays, and lighting the Hanukkah candles. Although I consider myself to be a very spiritual person, I don’t consider myself to be very religious. All of those things really don’t have much to do with this blog, so I don’t feel it is appropriate for me to go into too much detail about that part of my life here. I do really like celebrating where I come from, even if I don’t know all of the stories behind it, or have all of the knowledge of it, so I was really excited to learn about these cookies and take a stab at making them grain free.

stock photo rolling out cookie dough

 

stock photo cookie cutter

For this recipe I had a pretty good feel for how I would make the cookie dough, but the filling needed a bit of research. I learned that hamantaschen is traditionally served with a prune and raisin filling, but that using other berries for the filling can be done sometimes as well. I thought prune and raisin would be a fun filling to try, so we went for it. I cooked the filling with water, lemon juice, and a touch of maple syrup. I allowed the liquid to boil down, until I had a really nice thick filling of plump prunes and raisins. For the dough, the key ingredient to making these cookies work is adding enough arrowroot flour to thicken the dough enough to be able to manipulate it so that it will form the proper shape. If you choose to not eat arrowroot, tapioca flour can be used in the same amounts.

cookie dough with fruit filling

 

how to make hamantaschen cookies

 

how to make hamantaschen cookies

For these cookies we used a fun round cookie cutter that made an almost flower like shape. You can use a plain circle for these cookies, or one with smaller crinkles. Leaving the dough a little on the thicker side also helps when folding the cookies. If the dough is rolled out too thin you will not be able to fold the cookie to make the classic triangle shape. After the cookies were all cut, We filled the center of each cookie with about a teaspoon (give or take) of the prune filling. After that we carefully folded in the edges of the cookie to create a triangle. These beautiful little cookies then baked for 20 minutes, yielding one of the best cookies we have ever made! The texture was wonderful, and the flavor was even better.

paleo hamantaschen cookies

If you celebrate Purim, or if you do not, you will really enjoy these adorable little cookies!

Hamantaschen cookie for purim

 

Hamantaschen

Here is a recipe for grain-free hamantaschen. Hamantaschen is a pastry traditionally served during the Jewish holiday of Purim.

Serves: 16

Serves: 16decrease servingsincrease servings

Ingredients

Process

Note, these instructions are written assuming the standard serving size, since you have modified the number of servings, these steps may need to be modified for best results
  1. In a medium sized sauce pan, add the prunes, raisins, water, lemon juice, and maple syrup. Heat over medium heat.
  2. Bring filling to a boil, while stirring. Continue to stir frequently, while "mashing" the filling with a wooded spoon.
  3. Once the liquid has reduced, and you have a thick filling of plump prunes and raisins, remove from heat and set aside for filling the cookies.
  4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  5. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the almond flour, arrowroot, and salt.
  6. Add in the vanilla extract, maple syrup, and melted coconut oil. Stir until all ingredients are combined and you have a ball of cookie dough. **You can use your hands for this as well.
  7. Place ball of dough on to a sheet of parchment paper, adding additional arrowroot flour and kneading the dough until it is firm enough to be rolled and cut into shapes.
  8. Place another sheet of parchment paper over the dough, and roll into a 1/4 inch thick layer.
  9. Dust dough with additional arrowroot, as well as dip the cookie cutter in arrowroot flour, so the dough does not stick.
  10. Carefully cut circles in the dough, and remove the excess dough from around the circles.
  11. Add about a teaspoon (give or take) of filling to the center of the cookies, and carefully fold three sides in, making a triangular shape. Pinch the corners in to seal the cookies.
  12. Transfer the parchment to a baking sheet, and bake cookies for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack.
  13. Repeat this process using a fresh sheet of parchment, for the remainder of the dough, until you have used all of the cookie dough.
  14. Any remaining filling can be frozen and saved for future use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Primal Palate Spice Blends

Share a recipe

Upload your own recipes to Primal Palate, and help others find great food on our site,, meal planner and app!

Primal Palate Cooking Channel

    COMMENTS

    1. February 18, 2013

      Those look pretty freaking fantastic! I will have to make these one day. Also, I just listened to you guys on the fat burning man show and i loved it! I wish you still did your podcast. I understand that you are already so busy though. Gather sounded so incredible listening to you two, now I can’t wait even more!

    2. soozgrrl
      February 23, 2013

      Thanks for the great recipe! Our backgrounds are quite similar except my dad is Jewish. I grew up mostly with my mom’s side of the family so we had Christmas, Easter, etc. but always lit Shabbat and Chanukah candles. I too am drawn to my heritage and was even married by a hippie reform Rabbi with a ponytail :). I’m going to send this recipe to my dad!

    3. ranna91
      March 11, 2014

      is it possible to sub the arrowroot flour with tapioca starch? is that a 1:1 ratio?

      1. March 12, 2014

        Yes, you can absolutely use tapioca 1:1. Good luck! -Hayley

    4. melissahstanger
      March 13, 2014

      On the same vein as the tapioca starch, what about cornstarch? I couldn’t find tapioca or arrowroot starch at the grocery store near me. Thanks!

      1. March 15, 2014

        I would use an organic potato starch, before corn starch. We avoid corn starch. Good luck!

    5. ranna91
      March 14, 2014

      Hi, again! Thanks for the reply. I remembered that I bought a granulated tapioca starch from Whole Foods because they were out of the powdery looking one…. Do you think that will work the same? I ask again because it looks as though it has a different texture from the powder in the video you posted!

      1. March 15, 2014

        Try running it through your food processor or blender to make it into a powder form. That may work. Good luck!

    6. kitchentested
      March 14, 2014

      Such a wonderful recipe! I just made these for the first time and my house smells like maple and almonds. I love that the dough is so easy to work with even though it has no eggs or gluten in it. These are officially my new addiction.

      1. March 15, 2014

        Thank you!!

    7. shalom
      February 5, 2015

      I am so excited to try this recipe. It looks amazing and the video is so helpful. I read earlier that tapioca ‘starch’ can be substituted for the arrowroot flour. For this recipe, is tapioca ‘flour’ interchangeable with tapioca ‘starch’? Or should I stick with ‘starch’? Blessings!!!

    8. foodski
      February 28, 2015

      Hello there,

      I cannot eat Almond. What would you recommend using instead of the 2 cups of Blanched Almond Flour?

      Thanks!

    9. elisheva
      March 9, 2016

      Thank you so much for this recipe! We just found out our kids are allergic to gluten, eggs and dairy, so it’s perfect!

      If your mom is Jewish, then you are also — contact me if you want any help rediscovering your heritage :). I love being Jewish.

    Write a Comment

    You need to be registered and logged in to post a comment.