Students got down and dirty in dough for the annual dog-eat-dog Hamantaschen Bake-Off at UF Hillel on Wednesday night.
Hamantaschen are triangular-shaped, jelly-filled pastries that are traditionally eaten for the Jewish holiday Purim, which begins Saturday. The shape of the cookies symbolizes the hat of Haman, the villain of Purim’s historic story.
“We eat the cookies to remember that we were saved from this bad guy,” said Melanie Miller, 19-year-old Torah Advancement Program treasurer and UF political science freshman.
Torah Advancement Program, the newest Jewish grassroots organization, competed against Koach, the Conservative Judaism organization, and Kesher, the Reform Judaism organization.
For the bake-off, some cookie competitors deviated from the traditional jelly-filled recipes and showcased their creativity with flavors including Girl Scouts’ Samoa, cheesecake, Nutella and Marshmallow Fluff-flavored hamantaschen.
Koach took first place for its three different hamantaschen filled with jelly, Fluff and Nutella.
“Our hamantaschen is just simple, and it’s the beauty in being simple. It’s a very traditional recipe,” said 22-year-old bake-off winner and president of Koach Stefani Pila, a UF psychology and history senior.
In the spirit of Purim, Hillel’s campus impact specialist Jeffrey Kaplan plans to build the world’s largest grogger.
The 27-year-old entrepreneurship graduate student said groggers are noisemakers used as part of the Purim celebration, and his goal is to create a 5-by-8 foot grogger using brackets, swivel casters and screws. The original grogger is 3-by-6 inches.
Team Koach prepares hamantaschen in a bake-off at UF Hillel on Wednesday. The cookies are filled with fruit, chocolate or other ingredients.
