Cheddar Cheese Hamentashen

If you love Hamentashen and you love cheese, then these Cheddar Cheese Hamentashen are the perfect cookie for your Purim celebration. We filled ours with Doves and Figs Falling Leaves (apple, fig, & dried cranberry) jam but any fig jam or homemade fig filling will work well.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (plus additional for rolling cookies)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 egg
3 Tablespoons cold water
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup fig jam

Equipment
Cookie sheet
2″ cookie or biscuit cutter or glass with 2″ rim
rolling pin

How To
Heat the oven to 350 degrees
In a mixer or food processor or by hand, cream together butter and sugar
Beat egg and water and add to the butter/sugar mixture
In a bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt
With the mixer or food processor running, add all of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix just until a ball of dough begins to form (by hand blend in flour with a wooden spoon and hands until dough forms into a ball)
Kneed in the cheese and a bit more flour if the dough is still sticky
Roll out dough to 1/8″ thick and cut out circles of dough
Spoon a scant teaspoon of jam onto each circle and dampen the edge lightly with water on a pastry brush or fingertips
Fold the dough edges to form a triangle
Bake for about 12 minutes until lightly browned
Cool and enjoy your Purim treats!

 

Jam Kitchen Marmalade Cake

The mid Winter jam kitchen crew is juicing, peeling, zesting, and simmering as fast as we can. The season for Seville oranges is a special time that is over in the blink of an eye. Even though we were making a traditional style marmalade, we had to add our own New England twist by blending in dried cranberries.
Once all of those bitter oranges and tart cranberries were cooked into tangy/sweet marmalade and poured into jars, it was time for a reward.  It would seem to some that after weeks of making marmalade, we would be sick of it but instead we were longing to delight in the fruits of our labors. A cup of Earl Grey tea (yes even more citrus) and a slice of sticky marmalade cake was just the thing to enjoy during a break from all that hard work.

Marmalade Cake
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon fresh orange zest
pinch of cinnamon

1 cup unsalted butter
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup marmalade (we used our Garnets in the Grove-orange cranberry)
4 eggs (lightly beaten)
1/4 cup buttermilk (or whole milk)
1/4 cup fresh orange juice

Topping
1/3 cup marmalade
2 Tablespoons orange juice

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a round 8″ glass pie dish or square pan generously. Toss the dry ingredients (except sugar)
and orange zest together in a bowl and set aside. Cream butter and sugar by hand or in a mixer. Add eggs, juice, marmalade and milk and blend well. Stir in the dry ingredients and blend until combined but not over mixed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes. When the cake is done, stir 2 Tablespoons of orange juice into 1/3 cup marmalade and warm in a small saucepan or in microwave. Pour over cake and enjoy warm or room temp with ice cream, yogurt, or traditional custard.

Happy Thanksgivukkah! Squash Sufganiyot with Cranberry Chocolate Jam

I adore holidays; gathering with family and friends, the table overflowing with food, the cheerful decorations. This year we have a once in a lifetime chance to take two of my favorite holidays and bring them together in one mashuganah mash up being called Thanksgivukkah. As readers of my blog know, I have cooked up some crazy dishes for holidays so this new holiday hybrid was irresistible.  So I share with you the Squash Sufganiyot filled with Cape Escape Cranberry Chocolate Jam. So much Chanukah and Thanksgiving deliciousness in one little bite!  Happy Holidays x2!

Squash Sufganiyot with Cape Escape Cranberry Chocolate Jam
3 cups flour
8 ounces peeled and cubed butternut squash
3/4 cup apple cider
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
oil for frying
cinnamon & sugar mixture for outside of donuts
Filling: Doves and Figs Cape Escape jam or other cranberry jam

Heat oven to 450 degrees
Roast squash for about 35 minutes in a shallow dish until very tender
Heat several inches of oil in a heavy bottom pan
Process squash with apple cider in a food processor or blender
Beat eggs into squash
Combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon in a large bowl
Pour squash mixture into the flour mixture and stir until well combined but do not over mix.
Let rest for a few minutes
Scoop heaping tablespoons of the dough into hot oil.
Fry until golden and cooked in the center (test one little donut to make sure you have a good cooking time).
Drain and cool on paper towels
Roll warm sufganiyot in cinnamon sugar
Fill donuts with chocolate cranberry jam
Eat, eat it’s Thanksgivukkah!!

Spreading the Local Jam Love

I started this blog to share recipes from my kitchen and mostly that is what I will still be doing here. Once in a while I will share news about my little jam company, Doves and Figs and perhaps a few other places and products that I love. Our website is www.dovesandfigs.com and I would love to have you visit anytime but it will be even more exciting in a month or so when we add our online shop! We have been getting wonderful notices in the press most recently from the Arlington Advocate and the Improper Bostonian. In the meantime, you can order jam by emailing or calling us and check out our Jam Nest for prices, flavors, and contact info.

This June we will be exhibiting at the Fancy Food Show in NYC for the first time. I attended this huge food business show last year and so I know what we are in for and will be bringing plenty of delicious jams for buyers to sample.

In July it will be just two years since we sold our first jar of jam at the Winchester Farmers Market. I made a big  stack of 12-jar cases (much more jam then I had ever made at one time before) and hoped to sell them over the course of the summer at Winchester and Arlington markets. I remember saying to my hubby that I hoped to sell a least 6 jars at that first market. He advised me to bring every single jar I had made; I advised him that he was nuts.  We did not bring any jars home!

A great market season led to getting a wholesale license and selling in wonderful stores from cheese and gourmet shops to produce shops to boutiques and gift stores with more exciting places coming on all the time.

I would love to know any ideas you have for places that should carry our jam, flavors that we should make, or recipes you have made with our jam that you would like to share. Please leave us a comment here or on Twitter @dovesandfigs or on our facebook page. Thanks and keeping on spreading the local jam love!

We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging from my kitchen for more recipes…