My home bakery

Last weekend I spent several hours in the kitchen baking cookies. I tried a couple new recipes, with mixed results. The first cookie, the poppyseed cookie (Mohn Kichel) was more like a scone than a cookie. In fact, it would be an excellent companion for afternoon tea. But as a cookie it just doesn't cut it. Here are some pictures of toasting the poppy seeds and then rolling out the dough (it is a quite beautiful dough).

The second cookie was my first attempt at making Hamantaschen. These are little pocket cookies that can be filled with just about anything. I made the dough according to the recipe, and it ended up being very spongy. I would try to roll it out, and it would spring back into place. I certainly got a workout trying to tame that beast. I tried to follow the recipe for the filling, but I didn't like the result at all, so I just substituted chocolate chips or chopped dried fruit. I didn't have any jam or preserves in the apartment, or I would have used those.

Next time I think I'll use my mom's sugar/butter cookie recipe for the dough, since I know it tastes delicious and is very easy to roll out. Here are the results side-by-side: