Purim 2024
An empty food container becomes this colorful Queen Esther crown. This no-bake mishloach manot container is so easy to make. No baking, no hot stoves. All you need is an empty round food container, tea biscuits, icing, colored sugar and small candies. Adults cut the boxes to size and then the children delight in creating their Queen Esther crowns.
What you need...
makes 2 crowns
Empty round cardboard food container with plastic lid, such as oatmeal or matzo meal
24 rectangular tea biscuits*
sprinkles
yellow sanding sugar
small candies
*8 biscuits are needed to cover a regular size container. The extra biscuits are for possible breakage.
**I prefer royal icing, because it dries hard; however, canned icing can be substituted
Let's do it...
Note: Steps requiring sharp knives are done by adults
Make the Crown Frames
Cut two bands of paper 2" high and long enough to fit around the container.
Tape the bands to the container to secure.
The bands are your guides for cutting the container with a serrated knife or box cutter.
Wrap the crown frames in aluminum foil. Secure with tape.
Set frames aside until ready to use
Cut the biscuits
Using a plastic knife, score the biscuit by gently drawing the blade across the biscuit 2-3 times in a sawing motion.
Snap the biscuit along the score line. If desired, the rough-cut edges can then be filed smooth with a clean unused Emory board.
For the center biscuit (crown point) cut a triangular top, as shown.
For the side biscuits, cut roughly 1/2” off the top edge, as shown. These biscuits should be slightly shorter than the crown point biscuit.
Decorate the biscuits
Spread a thin coating of icing over a cut biscuit.
Dip top and bottom edges in sprinkles.
Sprinkle yellow sanding sugar over icing, as shown.
Repeat for remaining biscuits.
Use a dot of icing to glue small candies to the biscuits.
Set decorated biscuits aside to dry.
Add the decorated biscuits to the crown frame
Glue the crown point to the frame with a dab of icing
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Pipe a zigzag line of icing along one side of the crown point, as shown(1).
Pipe a second zigzag line on the frame just ½” from the first line, as shown(2).
Gently press a decorated biscuit onto the frame, as shown.
Add a decorated biscuit to the other side of the crown point, following steps above.
Continue adding decorated biscuits, alternating sides, until the frame is covered.
There are so many ways to decorate Queen Esther's crown. Here are some other ideas.
After sprinkling the colored sugar on the biscuits,
pipe a squiggle of icing down the center of the biscuit.
Dip the biscuit, squiggle side down into a plate of sprinkles. Set aside to dry slightly before adding to the crown frame.
After all the biscuits are added to the frame, pipe icing along the crown's top edge.
Cover biscuits with icing.
Dip top and bottom edges in sprinkles.
For an extra sparkle, sprinkle just a bit of white sanding sugar over the icing.
Glue silver dragees to the biscuits with a dot of icing.
Queen Esther 3D Mini-Cookie Crowns
Continuing with the theme of recycling kitchen throwaways, I created these cute
3D mini-Queen Esther cookie crowns. The lid of a yogurt container became a cookie cutter for the crown’s points. The heavy-duty cardboard tube from an empty roll of plastic wrap became a baking mold. Best of all, these cookies are decorated before baking, no waiting for icing to dry. Roll, cut, decorate, bake and the cookies are ready for your mishloach manot.
What you need...
1 recipe Sweet Ring Cookie Dough
1 egg white
Assorted colored sugars or sprinkles
Silver dragees and/or mini-M&Ms for crown jewels
Heavy duty cardboard core tube(s) from plastic wrap or aluminum foil (Empty 6-ounce tomato paste cans can be substituted for cardboard tubes.)
Pliable plastic food lid, such as from a yogurt container
Let's do it...
Notes: Steps using sharp knives and hot ovens are adult tasks.
Prepare your baking tube
Cut a piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil that is 2” longer than the length of your tube.
Place the tube on the foil so that there is a 1” border of foil at each end of the tube.
Tightly wrap the foil around the tube. It is important that the entire tube is completely covered. Tuck the foil ends into the tube to secure the foil.
Lightly grease the baking tube with margarine or butter.
Secure the baking tube to your baking sheet with a small piece of cookie dough placed at each end of the tube. Set aside.
Make the accordion cookie cutter
To make the accordion cutter, cut a 4” x ½” strip from a pliable plastic lid. Mark off several equal size intervals along the length of the strip. Bend the strip at each interval to create accordion-like folds, as shown.
Rolling, cutting and decorating the cookies
Add 1 teaspoon of water to reserved egg white and stir. Set aside.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll cookie dough into a rectangle 1/8” thick or slightly thicker.
Cut dough into strips 2” high x 3.5” long. Note: If you are using tomato paste cans cut strips 2” x 4.5”
Use the accordion cutter to cut the crown’s top edge.
Brush the cookie with the egg white.
Gently press your jewels (mini-M& Ms or dragees) into the cookie.
Sprinkle cookie with colored sugar and/or sprinkles.
Carefully lift the decorated cookie off your work surface and lay the cookie on top of the baking tube. Gently mold the cookie to the tube. The cookie will fit around 2/3 of the tube. Note: There is no need to worry about spacing the cookies on the tube, as there is minimal spread during baking.
Baking
Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 18-20 minutes or until the edges are slightly browned.
Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before slipping cookie crowns off the tube. For an extra crunchy cookie, after you have turned the oven off, stand the baked cookies on a baking sheet and return to the oven. Leave the cookies in the oven until the oven is cold.
Happy Purim
Purim 2023
Purim Story Pops
Super Simple
(no-bake)
Purim Cookies on a Stick
(baked)
Dress up your mishloach manot with these delightful Purim cookies.
My super simple Purim Story Pops are the perfect activity for your family Purim party or synagogue carnival. Create these pops with your favorite sandwich cookie, some frosting, mini-candies and lollipop sticks. It's a quick trip to the grocery store, and you’re ready to go. For whimsical hair and beards replace the chocolate frosting with rainbow color frosting.
My Purim Cookies on a Stick are loads of fun too. The cookie dough recipe is adapted from
Cooking alla Giudia: a celebration of the Jewish food of Italy, by Benedetta Jasmine Guetta. The recipe is quite simple. The dough is mixed by hand and is perfect for young children. The cookies are painted with tinted egg yolk before baking. Add a little bling to the crowns and hats with colored sugar crystals.
For a fun Purim breakfast visit Purim 2022.
Purim Story Pops
King Ahasuerus
Mordecai
Queen Esther
Haman
Vashti
What you need...
sandwich cookies
vanilla frosting
chocolate frosting*
mini-round candies
lollipop sticks
food coloring - yellow, green, red
zip seal bags (1 cup portion) or piping cones
*Substitute vanilla frosting tinted with brown food coloring
Let's do it...
Prepare frosting
Tint vanilla frosting yellow, green and pink (3 tablespoons for each color).
Place the chocolate, vanilla and tinted frosting in zip bags.
Push frosting to one corner, as shown, twist bag top. Secure twist with an elastic or twist'm.
Separate sandwich cookie into two pieces.
Gently press a lollipop stick into cookie frosting.
Pipe fresh frosting over the stick as shown. This frosting will hold the two cookie pieces together. Sandwich the two cookie pieces back together.
Eyes, nose and mouth
Pipe dots for the eyes as shown.
Press small candies into frosting dots as shown
Pipe dots of chocolate frosting into the center of the candies, as shown.
Pipe the nose following the direction of the arrows, as shown.
Pipe a pink mouth for Queen Esther and Vashti, as shown.
Pipe a dot of frosting and add a small piece of candy for the King's, Mordecai's, and Haman's mouths.
Hair, beards, hats and crowns
Pipe chocolate frosting around the side of the cookie, filling in the space as shown.
Pipe chocolate beards and hair for the King, Mordecai and Haman.
For the crowns, pipe two thick lines of yellow frosting, as shown.
Pipe three mounds of frosting on top of the frosting lines.
Add bits of candy for gems.
For Mordecai's hat, pipe green frosting lines back and forth; the longest line for the hat brim. Pipe shorter and shorter lines as you move up to the top of his hat, as shown.
For Haman's hat, cut a small triangle of cookie, cover with green frosting, and glue to Haman's head with frosting.
Queen Esther and Vashti
Pipe chocolate frosting squiggles or lines for hair.
Pipe a crown for Queen Esther.
Pipe a headband of green frosting for Vashti.
Purim Cookies on a Stick
What you need...
1 recipe Sweet Ring Cookie Dough
flour for rolling and cutting dough
mini chocolate chips
2 maraschino cherries
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon honey
green, yellow and brown* food coloring
mini colorful candy bits for gems
round cookie cutter 3.5" diameter
10 6” lollipop sticks
10 parchment paper squares 5" x5"
food safe paint brush
toothpick
wax paper
*Substitute 1 teaspoon cocoa powder for brown food coloring
Notes: Tasks with sharp knives and hot ovens are for adults
When making large batches of these cookies, I work assembly line style. First cutting all the
circles; placing each circle on a parchment paper square and covering them with plastic wrap. I then cut all the mouths from the maraschino cherries, and make all the eyes, ears and noses. When this is completed, I line up all the circles, and pop on all the facial features.
Let's do it...
Mix together honey and egg yolk until completely blended.
Place half of the yolk mixture in a custard cup and tint brown. If you are using cocoa powder in place of brown food coloring, blend in the cocoa powder until the mixture is smooth. Divide the remaining yolk mixture and tint yellow and green. Set yolk paints aside.
Dust a piece of wax paper with flour and roll the prepared dough into a sheet ¼” thick. For tips on rolling level dough click here.
Cut 10 circles. Remove excess dough, wrap in plastic and set aside. This will be used for the eyes, ears, noses and hats. Keep the dough circles covered until ready to use.
Before you begin to sculpt your Purim character, place the cookie dough circle on a square of parchment paper. The shaped cookie remains on this parchment paper until the baked cookie is removed from the oven.
King Ahasuerus
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3
2
Cut the King’s crown as shown (1,2)
Trim the sides of the cookie below the crown as shown (3,4)
Roll up the trimmings and wrap in plastic for later use.
Using a toothpick to draw the lines for the King’s hair and beard, as shown.
Eyes
Roll a small piece of dough into a thin string 2” long.
Coil the string as shown leaving a short tail.
Glue the eye to the King’s head with just a dab of water.
Press a mini chocolate chip, pointed end down, into the center of the coil for the eyeball.
Repeat step for the second eye.
Ears
Repeat the steps for the eyes, omitting the tail.
Glue to the sides of the King's head with a dab of water.
Nose and Mouth
Roll a small piece of dough into a ball, about the size of a gum ball. Shape into a tear drop.
Lay the tear drop on a flat surface and shape into a nose as shown above.
Use a toothpick to poke two holes for nostrils Glue to King’s face with a dab of water.
Cut a small piece of maraschino cherry and press into face for the mouth.
Mordecai
Follow steps for the King's hair, beard, eyes, ears, nose and mouth.
For Mordecai’s hat, cut a half-circle and roll up the straight edge as shown, to form a hat brim.
Glue to Mordecai’s head with a dab of water.
Haman
Use your fingers to shape the cookie circle into an oval shape.
Shape the top of the oval into a triangle for Haman’s hat, as shown.
Glue a narrow strip of dough across the bottom of the triangle to form the hat’s brim.
Follow steps for the King's hair, beard, nose and mouth.
Glue Haman’s eyes on with the tails pointing up, as shown.
Queen Esther and Vashti
Using your fingers shape the cookie circle into a head, creating a chin, rounded sides for the hair, and small mound at the top for the crown.
Cut Queen Esther's crown following the directions for the King's crown. Follow the steps for the King's hair, eyes, nose and mouth.
Trim the bottom of Vashti's hair to give it a more angular look as shown. Follow the steps for Haman's hair, eyes, nose and mouth.
Glue a narrow band of dough to the queen's crown and another band across Vashti's forehead as shown.
Painting the cookies
First add the lollipop stick
Carefully lift up the bottom edge of the chin and gently slip a lollipop stick under the cookie face. Position the stick so it is in the center of the face, underneath the lips and nose.
The top of the stick should reach almost to the top of the nose.
Gently press the cookie onto the stick to secure.
Paint the crowns, hats, and then the hair and beards. If you are using cocoa powder, stir until there are no lumps before painting. add mini candies to the crowns.
Carefully transfer the painted cookies to a baking sheet.
Bake in pre-heated oven at 350 degrees.
Bake 15 -18 minutes or until the cookie is golden brown on the tip of the nose and around the edges.
Remove from oven. Allow to cool 5 minutes on baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack. After the cookie has cooled, peel off the parchment paper.
For a bit of pizzaz wrap brightly colored tissue paper or ribbons around the lollipop sticks.
Happy Purim!
Purim 2022
On Purim we read from the Book of Esther, the story of how Good Queen Esther saved the Jews of Persia from destruction. It is a holiday filled with fun, costumes, masks, singing, dancing, and gifts of food and drink (mishloach manot). Kick off your holiday celebration with a Purim Punim Pancake breakfast or, create simple no-bake Purim Pops to decorate your mishloach manot.
Purim Punim Pancakes
King Ahasuerus
Queen Esther
Haman
Mordecai
Start with your favorite pancake mix, then add fresh and dried fruits to create your Purim punim. Punim is face in Yiddish, and these faces are so much to make!
All cooking steps are adult steps. While the adult is cooking the pancakes, the children can prepare the facial features. The fruits used in these faces are easily cut using a sturdy plastic picnic knife.
See directions at the end of this post on how to freeze uncooked pancake faces. Using this method, children can create their own pancake batter faces to be cooked later by the adult.
What you need …
1 recipe pancake mix (size of your face will determine yield)
Favorite fruits – for these faces, I used blueberries, strawberries, kiwi, banana, mango, mandarin orange slices, raisins, dates, pitted prunes and toasted coconut.
Soft squeeze bottle (8 ounces)
Parchment paper if using the frozen pancake method
Tips: I use a non-stick pan. While drawing the outline in the pan, I have the flame on very low.
After filling in the larger areas with batter, I increase the flame to medium. To fill in the larger areas, a measuring cup with a beak or a small pitcher works best.
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Prepare your batter. You should be able to easily squeeze a nice steady stream of batter from the bottle. If the batter is too thick add more liquid, about 1 teaspoon at a time until the correct consistency is achieved. Conversely, if the batter flows too quickly from the bottle, add more mix.
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Place 1 cup batter in the squeeze bottle. This batter will be used to draw the outlines and fill in small areas. Use the remaining batter to fill in the largest outlined areas.
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Pre-heat your pan on a low flame.
All faces start with the outline. The outline serves as a wall to hold in the batter. Let the outline firm up a bit before filling in the pancake.
Let's do it...
Queen Esther
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Draw the outline as pictured above; an oval for the face, the crown, and then add Queen Esther's hair.
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Increase the flame to medium-low. Pour pancake batter into the face area and tilt the pan to spread the batter.
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Use the squeeze bottle to fill in the hair and crown.
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When the pancake is filled with bubbles carefully flip. Continuing cooking until the bottom is lightly browned.
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Transfer pancake to serving plate.
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Add facial features.
Eyes – Use banana slices cut in half and raisins. For eyebrows use thinly sliced date pieces.
Crown – Use thin mango slices cut into triangles for the crown. For the gems use kiwi strips, small pieces of strawberry, and blueberries
Nose – large raisin
Mouth – strawberry slice
Mordecai
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Draw the outline of Mordecai's face.
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Add the outline for Mordecai’s hat, and then the inside lines of the hat.
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Increase flame to medium-low. Pour pancake batter into the face area and tip pan to spread the batter.
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Use the squeeze bottle to fill in the hat.
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When the pancake is filled with bubbles, carefully flip. Cook until the bottom is lightly browned.
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Transfer to serving plate.
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Add facial features
Eyes – Use banana slices cut in half, mandarin slices, and raisins. For eyebrows use thinly sliced date pieces.
Nose – large raisin
Mouth – strawberry slice
Beard- toasted coconut
King Ahasuerus
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Draw the outline for his face, then add his crown.
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Increase the flame to medium-low. Pour pancake batter into the face area and tilt the pan to spread the batter.
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Use the squeeze bottle to fill in the crown.
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When the pancake is filled with bubbles carefully flip. Continuing cooking until the bottom is lightly browned.
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Transfer pancake to serving plate.
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Add facial features.
Eyes – Use banana slices and raisins. For eyebrows use thinly sliced date pieces.
Crown – Use thin mango slices cut into triangles. For the gems use blueberries.
Nose – large raisin
Mouth – strawberry slice
Beard – toasted coconut
Haman
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Draw outline for face.
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Add bottom hat band, then add triangular hat top, and lines inside the triangle.
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Pour pancake batter into the face area and tip pan to spread the batter.
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Use the squeeze bottle to fill in Haman’s hat. When the pancake is filled with bubbles, carefully flip.
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Cook until the bottom is lightly browned. Transfer to serving plate.
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Add facial features.
Eyes - blueberries
Eyebrows - thin prune slices
Nose - blueberry
Mouth - date half
Beard - flattened pitted prune
Freezing Method
Cut a piece of parchment paper or wax paper slightly larger than the size of the pancake you want to make. I use a waxed parchment paper.
On the parchment paper, draw and fill in your pancake face following the directions above. Carefully transfer the uncooked pancake, on the paper, to a cookie sheet and freeze until hard.
When ready to cook. Preheat your frying pan to medium-low.
Carefully peel off the parchment paper and place your frozen pancake in the frying pan.
Super Simple
No-bake Cookie Pops
Omit the lollipop stick and use your Purim cookie pop for a centerpiece. Substitute mini-sandwich cookies for Oreos and spell out "Purim" or the name of the person you are sending the mishloach manot to.
What you need ...
Chocolate coated sandwich cookies or small chocolate coated cakes. I use Oeros and Ring Dings.
Frosting
Food colors (optional)
Small candies, colored sprinkles, finely chopped nuts or shredded coconut
Lollipop sticks or popsicle sticks
Piping bag (see Icings)
Let's do it...
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If desired, tint frosting. Place frosting in a piping bag and snip a very small opening. Set aside.
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Place tiny candies in a shallow dish or on a piece of wax paper
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Insert lollipop stick into cookie.
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Pipe a thick ring of frosting around the edge of the cookie as shown. Alternatively, you can use a plastic picnic knife to spread frosting around the cookie.
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Dip the frosted edge into the candies, gently pressing the candies into the frosting.
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Pipe your holiday message across the cookie front as shown.
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If you are wrapping the pop in cellophane, set the decorated cookie aside to allow the frosting to firm up a bit, before wrapping.
©2022 by Nosh Art Fun.