A Feast of Desserts

Our family gets together to celebrate all Jewish holidays, but Purim seems to be everyone’s favorite. How can you not love a holiday that tells you to dress up, forget your troubles, enjoy delicious food and drink lots of wine?

Our daughter and daughter-in-law spend days before Purim making costumes for our grandchildren, who dress up like the characters in the Purim play. The girls want to be Queen Esther, and the boys identify with brave Mordecai and King Ahasuerus. Of course, no one wants to be the evil Haman, who plotted against the Jews.

Before leaving for the Purim festival, the kids parade around the neighborhood eating the hamantaschen they helped bake.

In the evening, the family always has dinner at our house. They arrive still dressed in their costumes and ready to act the parts of the biblical characters in the Purim story. Everyone selects a grogher (Purim noisemaker) from our collection to twirl each time Haman’s name is mentioned.

According to tradition, Queen Esther became a vegetarian when she moved into the king’s palace. She ate primarily seeds and legumes to avoid eating non-kosher food. In her honor, we observe this custom at dinner by serving big bowls of vegetable, bean and barley soup, along with thick loaves of hot crusty bread and a salad buffet. And in keeping with the festive spirit of Purim, we serve a hearty red wine and grape juice.

Jewish cuisine has contributed some wonderful dessert recipes to American cooking, and Purim especially has inspired some favorites. By far the best-known Purim dessert is hamantaschen.

These triangular pastries are named after either the hat of Haman, his pockets or his ears. Whatever you think they look like, they are delicious. (Like many Purim foods, hamantaschen contain poppyseeds. The reason is probably that the Yiddish word for poppyseed, mon, reminded people of the second syllable of “Haman.”)

Every family has its favorite hamantaschen recipe. Usually, it is made from a sugar cookie dough that is rolled out and filled with a poppy seed, prune or apricot filling, then shaped into a triangle. Along with hamantaschen, I like to serve three other less-traditional but festive desserts: poppy seed baklava, poppy seed-honey thins and a double orange-glazed bundt cake.

POPPY SEED BAKLAVA

Alexandra Poer, the pastry chef at Dickenson-West Restaurant in Pasadena, has created this filo-and-dried-fruit dessert based on the Middle Eastern baklava. It was so delicious I asked her for the recipe and adapted it as a Purim dessert by using poppy seeds instead of fruit.

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup toasted pistachio nuts, finely chopped

1 cup melted butter

10 sheets of filo pastry, cut in half crosswise

1 (12-1/2 ounce) can poppy seed filling

2 tablespoons strawberry preserves

Mix together sugar, cinnamon and pistachio nuts in small bowl. Set aside.

Brush bottom of baking sheet with melted butter. Place 1 half-sheet filo on bottom of baking sheet. Brush its entire surface lightly with butter. Lay second half-sheet on top and butter it lightly. Repeat procedure until you’ve used 10 half-sheets of filo.

Mix poppy seed filling with preserves. Spread filling evenly over prepared filo sheets. Place 1 half-sheet of remaining filo on top of filling and brush entire surface lightly with butter as before. Repeat procedure with remaining filo and butter. Brush top filo sheet with butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar-pistachio mixture.

Using small sharp knife, score top of baklava lengthwise with parallel lines, 2 inches apart, through 2 top sheets of filo. Repeat same pattern horizontally to form square shapes.

Bake at 350 degrees 30 minutes. Raise temperature to 425 degrees and bake until sugar becomes lightly caramelized, 5 to 10 minutes. (Note: Watch carefully because it browns quickly.) Remove baklava from oven. With sharp knife, cut into squares following pattern marked on filo. Serve warm or room temperature.

12 baklava. Each baklava:

305 calories; 89 mg sodium; 21 mg cholesterol; 14 grams fat; 43 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams protein; 2.58 gram fiber.

POPPY SEED HAMANTASCHEN

1/4 pound butter or margarine, softened

1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

Peel of 1 orange, grated

2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

3 (8-ounce) cans poppy seed filling

Beat butter and sugar in electric mixer until well blended. Beat in 2 eggs and orange peel, blending thoroughly. Add flour, baking powder, salt and poppy seeds and blend until dough is smooth.

Transfer to floured board and divide dough into 3 or 4 portions for easier handling. Flatten each portion with palm of hand and roll out 1/4-inch thick.

With scalloped or plain cookie cutter, cut into 2 1/2-inch rounds. Place 1 heaping teaspoon filling in center of each round. Bring edges of dough toward center to form triangle, leaving bit of filling visible in center. Pinch edges to seal.

Lightly beat remaining egg. Place hamantaschen 1/2 inch apart on lightly greased foil-lined baking sheet and brush with beaten egg. Bake at 375 degrees until golden brown, 10 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool.

60 to 70 hamantaschen. Each of 70:

37 calories; 21 mg sodium; 13 mg cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 5 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.10 gram fiber.

DOUBLE ORANGE-GLAZED BUNDT CAKE

1/2 pound plus 1 tablespoon butter or margarine, at room temperature

3 tablespoons finely ground almonds

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 cups unbleached flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons poppy seeds

1 cup whipping cream, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Grated peel of 2 oranges

1/2 cup strained orange juice

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup orange marmalade, strained to remove orange peel

Grease 10-inch bundt pan or fluted tube pan with 1 tablespoon butter and sprinkle with ground almonds. Set aside.

Beat 1/2 pound butter and sugar in bowl of heavy-duty mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and poppy seeds in medium bowl. Add to butter mixture alternately with cream, beating at medium-low speed. Stir in vanilla and orange peel.

Pour batter into prepared tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees until lightly golden and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, cook orange juice and honey in saucepan over low heat, stirring once or twice, until honey is completely dissolved, about 3 minutes. Cool.

Cool baked cake in pan set on wire rack 5 minutes. Invert onto cake plate and brush with orange marmalade. Spoon honey-orange juice over cooled cake.

12 servings. Each serving:

568 calories; 481 mg sodium; 144 mg cholesterol; 27 grams fat; 79 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams protein; 0.25 gram fiber.

POPPY SEED-HONEY THINS

1 cup flour

2 teaspoons sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tablespoons oil plus extra for pan

1 cup honey

1/4 cup poppy seeds

Mix together flour, sugar, eggs and oil in large bowl. Knead dough and roll out thin. Line baking sheet with foil and brush with oil. Cut dough into triangle or diamond shapes, prick with fork, set on foil and bake at 375 degrees until golden and crisp, 7 to 10 minutes.

Bring honey to boil in saucepan. Pour into shallow dish and dip both sides of each triangle to coat. Remove and sprinkle generously with poppy seeds.

48 thins. Each thin:

42 calories; 3 mg sodium; 9 mg cholesterol; 1 gram fat; 8 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.05 gram fiber.

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Ralph Lauren “Denim” plate from Room at the Beach in Malibu and Grieco Home Collection in San Pedro.