Hamantaschen

Filling

Put 230g milk, 100g sugar and zest of one orange in a saucepan over medium heat.
Grind 125g poppy seeds to a fine powder in a coffee grinder, taking care not to over-process to a paste. It’s okay to only grind about half of the poppy seeds – some folks like a mix of textures.
When milk mixture is warm, turn heat to low and add poppy seeds.
Cook at a low simmer stirring frequently until the seeds absorb the milk and the mixture is thick, about 15 minutes.
Add lemon juice of lemon half and 1/2 tablespoon butter.
Stir and cook for 2 minutes more.
Stir in the vanilla extract, remove from the heat and let cool completely, or chill until needed, up to 3 days.

Dough

Cream 225g sugar, 8 tablespoons butter, and lemon or orange zest.
Beat in 3 eggs and 60 ml milk.
Mix together the 480 g flour and 3 ½ teaspoons baking powder.
Refrigerate dough for up to three days.
Preheat oven to 375°F.
If you’re a bit lazy, like me, take a bit of dough with your hands, roll into ball and then flatten to create a disk roughly 1/4 inch thick. Otherwise, you can roll out the dough and use a drinking glass to cut circles.
Lay the disks on a baking sheet (I use parchment paper) and then add a dollop of the filling. You can also use apricot jam filling, or whatever else you like inside cookies.
Fold three sides of the disks up to form a triangle shaped cookie, pressing the ends together to seal.
If you’re super fancy, add an egg wash to the tops, which can also be used to help seal the sides. I skip this step, because it doesn’t particularly affect taste, which is all that matters.
Bake for 15 minutes, or until the sides are a nice golden brown. You’ll want to eat these almost immediately. After seven hours, they will not be as tasty and you’ll be kicking yourself. Come on.