Purim 2018 NYC Bakery Hamantaschen Roundup

Welcome to my extremely unscientific and incomplete ramble through New York City’s vast and varied hamantaschen offerings. I hit up a few spots in Manhattan, because I live here, and a few more in Brooklyn (Midwood only this year—I had grand ambitions of venturing further afield, but Brooklyn is far and getting around it is hard). If you think I missed out on someplace important, please let me know in the comments!

Breads Bakery

Ah, Breads. Can this place do any wrong? (Actually, I didn’t adore their sufganiyot, so maybe?) In any case, Breads boasts what is probably the largest—and certainly the most interesting—array of flavors I encountered on my quest. In addition to classics like poppy and apricot (and pseudo-classic chocolate), they’ve got apple, pistachio cherry, and, most exciting, two savory varieties: potato and pizza.

The cookie on the sweet varieties is crumbly and buttery and delicious, if a bit crispier than I find ideal. They’re very neatly formed (pinched, not folded), though a bit unevenly baked.

A new flavor for this year is cherry pistachio, and this is the one I was most excited for. It didn’t disappoint. Like marzipan but better (because pistachios > almonds), with a moreish spumoni vibe from the it of cherry, this filling is unique and delicious.

The apricot, though more expected, is just as heavenly. It’s the perfect combination of sweet and savory, floral and rich, and for a beautiful moment it makes me feel like I’m being transported to California or France or some such sunny apricot-growing region.

Chocolate hamantaschen are generally not my jam, though Breads’ rendition might just force me to reconsider. While it’s not the most complex or sophisticated flavor on offer here, the quality is excellent.

The apple surprised me. I was expecting an apple pie vibe; what I got was Turkish delight. Generally embellished with rosewater and nuts, this is 100% Middle East and 0% Midwest (which probably shouldn’t surprise me, given the bakery’s Tel Aviv roots).

I’m sad to say that the poppy seeds in the poppy filling taste as if they might be ever so slightly past their prime—they do spoil awfully past—though it’s otherwise a solid rendition of a classic, and I do appreciate that it’s not overly sweet like so many others I sampled.

The two savory varieties have a soft, flaky crust, generously studded with my beloved nigella seeds. Generously studded with nigella seeds, the potato is absolute perfection, with a savory, oniony filling reminiscent of a really good potato knish.

The pizza is also strong, though I was slightly disappointed that the filling tastes more of sun-dried tomatoes than anything else. Still, I suppose a savory filling of sun-dried tomatoes is a rather ingenious spin on the traditional lekvar (fruit butter) fillings made of dried apricots and prunes.

10/10

Dairy, not certified kosher

1890 Broadway, NYC

42nd Street and Avenue of the Americas (in Bryant Park), NYC

18 East 16th St. (Union Square), NYC

Isaac’s Bake Shop

This unassuming old-school kosher spot in Midwood, Brooklyn, is perhaps best known for its location right across the street from pizza legend Di Fara. The day I visited, they had three flavors on offer: apricot, prune, and raspberry. Naturally, I went for one of each.

They’re small-ish and fairly neatly shaped, with just a bit of filling oozing out of the centers. I admit I liked the cookie base quite a bit—it’s hardly gourmet, but what it is is a dead ringer for the grocery store sprinkle cookies of my childhood, which, to this day, is what I look for in a hamantasch (or homie, as I like to call them).

The fillings, though, had room for improvement. None of the three were tremendously flavorful, all were too sweet for my tastes, and the consistency erred on the side of the gummy.

6/10

Kosher, pareve

1419 Avenue J, Brooklyn, NY

Meir’s Heimishe Bakery

With a name like this, you can only expect great things, right? The appearance of these homies was, indeed, slightly on the hemishe side—they weren’t quite as evenly formed as most of the rest I sampled, and the cookie part was a little craggy, with plenty of filling oozing out of the center.

I sampled raspberry, apricot, and date—which is a flavor I haven’t encountered anywhere else. While the cookie, despite its humble appearance, was solid—though it was on the drier side of the bunch, it wasn’t too sweet—the fillings disappointed. Yet again, I found all three far too sweet and lacking distinct fruit flavors. The raspberry in particular tasted very artificial, like it might have come straight from a Solo can.

5/10

Kosher, pareve

1321 Ave J, Brooklyn, NY

Orwashers

I had high hopes for Orwashers—after all, they are the purveyors of the best baguette in NYC, and their breads tend to be pretty stellar across the board.

I was slightly surprised at how itty-bitty these hamantaschen were—seriously, they would’ve been about right for an American Girl doll—but size isn’t everything. There’s something downright adorable about these tiny, perfectly formed triangles with sweet scalloped edges, actually.

No, the real problem with these was in the flavor(s). Orwashers makes only apricot and raspberry, and I’m sad to report that neither filling is very flavorful. Both have an unpleasantly gummy consistency, and the apricot in particular was far too sweet. The cookie casing is unremarkable; it serves its purpose but isn’t especially rich, flavorful, or memorable in any way. Disappointing!

4/10

Not kosher, dairy

308 E. 78th Street (b/w 1st & 2nd Aves), NYC

440 Amsterdam Avenue (@ 81st Street), NYC

292 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY

Ostrovitsky’s Bakery

These were the best of my Brooklyn expedition. For starters, Ostrovitsky’s offered the widest variety of flavors of the bakeries I visited: they had small hamantaschen in prune, apricot, and raspberry, and large ones in—what else?—poppy and prune.

While the fruit fillings were—you guessed it—too sweet and not very distinct in flavor, the poppy hit the spot. I think the poppy seeds in this filling were not ground, which provided a nice crunch, and though it was a little sweeter than I would’ve liked I can overlook that.

The cookie base has that grocery sprinkle cookie thing going on that I just can’t resist. From an appearance standpoint, the smaller homies were very neat looking, while the large ones were somewhat asymmetrical. Across the board, the filling-to-cookie ration was on the lower side.

7/10

Kosher, pareve

1124 Avenue J, Brooklyn, NY

William Greenberg Desserts

This Upper East Side establishment is the 2017 reigning champion. Their cookie base is my favorite of the bunch—rich and buttery, but soft rather than shortbread-crispy. The fillings here are decidedly more traditional than Breads’, but the variety is equally robust: poppy, prune, cherry, raspberry, apricot, chocolate, even cheese.

Prune is rich, earthy, and just the right degree of sweet. Cherry is basically old-school cherry pie filling, for better or for worse. The chocolate filling tastes pleasantly of marzipan, though it’s drier than it could have been. The cheese option, which I’ve rarely encountered, is like the filling of a cheese Danish; it’s pleasant, though not a standout. Raspberry is weak, with that trademark Solo gumminess. Poppy is solid, if slightly too sweet for my liking. I seem to have forgotten apricot, alas, though I recall enjoying it last year.

8/10

Dairy, not certified kosher

1100 Madison Ave, NYC

Verdict

Breads! Though their cookie base is only my second favorite, their innovative, delicious, and not-too-sweet fillings—not to mention their fab savory offerings—blow the competition out of the water. That said, I still think William Greenberg is worth a visit, especially if you’re a devotee of the classic flavors.

If you’re not in NYC, require kosher certification, or are just up for a baking adventure, though, I really think Faye Levy’s One, Two, Three Cookie Dough hamantaschen that I blogged a few weeks ago are, at least from a dough standpoint, the equal of anything I sampled on my tasting expedition.