Poppy Seed Filling with no sugar?

BatZion

Sun, Mar 09 2014, 9:53 am

Hi

I was wondering if the mroe experienced bakers out there know if I could take a regular poppy seed filling recipe that includes honey and sugar and just sub both with silan?If not- what do I do in order to create a sugar-free poppy seed recipe?

In addition, do any of you have sugar-free (no fancy sugar alternatives!) fillings for hamantashen?

Thanks!

mandksima

Sun, Mar 09 2014, 7:06 pm

I also would recommend pureeing your own dates rather than use the too liquidy silan. I use both dates and silan very often, I bake a lot without regular sugar. I found this recipe that uses dates and honey but there you could substitute the honey with date honey/silan. I haven't tried it so I can't vouch for it but here it is poppy seed filling

Volunteer

Sun, Mar 09 2014, 7:22 pm

Here's a recipe I made up myself. I like it better than regular poppy seed filling because it's more flavorful and it's nice and thick, so it doesn't leak out of your cookies.
Poppy Seed Filling for Hamantaschen makes about 1 cup of filling (enough for about 3 dozen cookies)
1/2 cup poppy seeds
3/4 cup raisins (regular or golden)
1/4 cup whole walnuts
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or 1/4 tsp almond extract
a pinch of salt
water as needed (a few tablespoons)

Optional step: To increase the flavor of your poppy seeds, you can toast them if you want to. Place all the seeds in a dry skillet and heat them on med to med-high heat until they are fragrant (2-5 minutes), stirring constantly. Be careful not to burn them.

Simply combine the poppy seeds, raisins, walnuts, extract, and salt in a food processor. Grind them all up together, gradually adding a TBS of water at a time, to make a paste. You'll need between 1-4 Tbs of water, depending on how moist your raisins are. If you accidentally add too much water, just add more raisins and seeds to compensate.

Variations: I have used dried apricots instead of raisins and the filling turned out excellent. I have omitted the walnuts and replaced them with more poppy seeds, and it also turned out good; the texture was a little grainier and it didn't have that slight nutty flavor from the walnuts. Once I added fresh lemon juice instead of water and lemon zest instead of vanilla, and it imparted a delicious tang.