Background

Having a partial South African background, British baked goods often featured as part of our family’s
favorite recipes, nurturing a strong preference for shortbread! Living in Israel as part of a Messianic Jewish family, we celebrated Purim and would bake Oznei Haman for the occasion.

In later years, I found this specific Oznei Haman recipe, desiring to fuse my love for shortbread with the holiday staple. While you can fill the cookies with more traditional options like poppy seeds or chocolate, I recommend a filling of lemon curd. It’s sure to surprise your guests and appeal to all the lemon lovers!

Recipe (makes approximately 20 cookies)

Pastry Ingredients:

• 100g icing sugar
• 200g unsalted butter
• 2 egg whites
• 1⁄4 tsp salt

Method:

Blend butter, sugar, and salt together, or rub the butter, sugar and salt together using your fingertips until combined. Then, blend in the egg whites until a dough is formed. If you are not using a blender, knead the egg whites into the mixture, working it as little as possible until a dough is formed. Let the dough sit in the refrigerator for at least two hours before filling.

Filling Ingredients:

• 6 egg yolks
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1.5 tbsp lemon zest
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 8 tbsp butter

Fill a large pot with water (you are going to use the double boiler method) and prepare a saucepan that fits over the pot. In the saucepan, add egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt. Once the water is boiling, place the saucepan over the pot and stir the mixture until it becomes thick. This should take about 10 minutes. Once the sauce has thickened, take it off the heat, and add the butter. Set aside the lemon curd to cool.

Final Step:

Now that you have the dough and the lemon curd, it’s time for the final step! Roll out the pastry, making sure you have enough flour on the surface, until the dough is 1⁄4 inch thick. Use a glass cup or a large round cookie cutter to punch out as many pastry circles as you can. Then, in the center of each circle, place a tsp of lemon curd. To fold the Oznei Haman, take the bottom third of the circle and fold it so that it partially covers the filling. Repeat the same action with the left and right sides of the circle. Now three corners should be formed; pinch them together.

Baking Process:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Bake the Oznei Haman, spaced one inch apart, for 15 minutes until they have a slight golden color.