Hamantaschen

As a child, I devoured butter-luscious hamantaschen by the bakery boxful. Tricornered sweet pastries enclosing open pools of jewel-toned jams—raspberry, apricot, and prune—or silver blue poppy seeds, they are named for the arch-evil Haman. Every Purim I delighted in consuming the wicked enemy.

My sweet tooth, I know, has grown smaller. But it seems to me that bakery hamantaschen, like bagels and muffins, have definitely grown larger. In fact, they are enormous: life-size replicas of