Diagnostic on a semi-failed recipe

[amalnahurriyeh]

My son and I baked gluten-free hamentaschen for Purim this weekend, and then were not a 100% success. This is a baked good that has bested me before; the last time I made them, I used too much xanthan gum (which helps the dough stick together, be springy, and be strong enough to roll and shape), and the pinched-together edges wouldn't stick and ended up unfolding in the oven. This time, I worked from this recipe, which I'll reproduce under a cut:

Yummy Gluten-Free Hamantaschen
Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) of margarine, softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 1/4 cups gluten-free all purpose flour, divided*
jam or other filling of your choice

Directions

*Make sure you choose a gluten-free flour that includes xanthan gum (I like Bob's Wonderful Bread Mix or Namaste Foods Perfect Flour Blend), or add 1 1/2 tsp of xanthan gum with the flour.

Cream margarine and sugar on high for 2-3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, allowing to combine before adding the next.

In a separate bowl, whisk together baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 3 cups of gluten-free flour (and xanthan gum if required). Turn mixer to the lowest speed and add to wet mixture a 1/2 cup at a time, allowing the dry ingredients to be incorporated before adding more. The dough should be soft but not sticky.

Divide the dough into four parts, roll each into a ball, wrap separately in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Dust the counter and the rolling pin with gluten-free flour. Remove 1 dough ball from the refrigerator and cut into circles using a 4 oz. mason jar or small juice glass (if the dough is too sticky to roll out and cut, add additional flour a tablespoon at a time until it is pliable enough). Fill with 1/4 tsp tsp of filling, pinch into a triangle, and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Repeat with remaining dough balls.

Originally posted on MyJewishLearning.com, recipe by Rella Kaplowitz.



This time, the dough didn't give me any of the same problems: it rolled out nicely, stuck together but didn't bounce back too much, and pinched into hamentaschen shapes very easily. However, in the oven the cookies melted down and turned into vaguely triangular flat puddles of cookie. They taste fantastic, but they don't look like hamentaschen.





Here they are before baking. Cute, huh? I should mention that the recipe makes four pans of this size-worth.



And here they are (on the right) after baking. These are the most triangular of the bunch; I don't know how well you can see, but they're perfectly flat.



So, what did I do wrong?

I've got a couple of possibilities:

1) I used butter instead of margarine. But they have nearly identical melting points, so that shouldn't have made a difference.

2) Insufficient dough chilling. The recipe called for the dough to be chilled for one hour before rolling; I only chilled it half an hour, because I was working with the constraints of preschooler-bedtime creeping up on me. The dough rolled out fine, which is usually why you chill GF doughs--to get them solid enough to work with. However, it seems likely that the butter needed to be more solid going into the oven to allow them to keep their shape. If this seems like the case, then I think they'd need to be chilled after forming them, because working with the dough to shape them, not to mention keeping them out on the counter while you make the rest, would let them get warm.

3) Oven over-crowding. Both my top and bottom rack were full of cookies, and both of the sheets were crowded. That could have allowed the butter to melt more before the cookies set up, if they weren't cooking fast enough.

4) Something specific to GF baking. For the record, I don't think this is it--the recipe worked fine at every step up until they went into the oven, including rolling, which is always tricky. Plus, the first two are the only deviations from the recipe involved, and, given the way the hamentaschen look in her photo, they seem to have come together OK.

What's your guess on what went wrong with these cookies? I'd like to make a note for myself, so when I make them next year they can be equally delicious but slightly better looking, lol.

Comments

[lqc]

They do still look tasty. Can't say that I've ever made them but the dough chilling issue does sound on par with experiences I've had using butter cookie recipes. Impatience and baking sometimes don't mix.

[amalnahurriyeh]

Impatience and baking sometimes don't mix.

Heh, and this is why I will always be a good baker, not a great one. *g*

The more I think about it, the more I think it's about dough temp. One of my favorite GF baking blogs at the moment almost always says to stick the baking sheets in the freezer for 10 minutes when making cookies; I'm thinking I'll start doing that when I want my cookies not to schlump.

[syderia]

It might also have something to do with your oven temp. I know that depending on the oven, the same displayed temp will give me either cookies that hold the shape or cookies that spread. You might want to try with a slightly higher temperature.

[amalnahurriyeh]

Hmm, good point--particularly combined with oven-crowding, the heat might not have been enough. I should get an oven thermometer--but in the mean time, if I'm making something that seems to need to hold its shape, I'll probably turn up the temp a little. Thanks!