How to: Make a hamantaschen Sierpinski triangle

Seattle local food blogger Deborah Gardner has made something truly amazing—combining the delicious Jewish traditional filled cookies called hamantaschen with wondrous math geekery.

It's Purim, so I'm making the hamantaschen recipe my grandmother z"l developed while she was alive, and passed down to me. It's my family obligation to make this recipe now every year and send hamantaschen out in boxes (gifts called mishloach manot) to my family and dear ones. I've done my best to preserve this recipe; I've written it up in the New York Times, I've taught workshops on how to make it for two Purims in a row, and I've committed to the family hamantaschen-baking role.

But this year, I did something else. You may be familiar with the Sierpinski triangle, a mathematically attractive, self-repeating fractal that starts with one equilateral triangle and breaks down into ever-smaller triangles.

Somehow this year it dawned on me that the world was incomplete without a Sierpinski hamantaschen, or sierpinskitaschen. I scoured the vast reaches of the Interwebs, to see if this had been done before. I may have missed something, but it seems this has not.

Until today.

Instructions (and some neat Sierpinsky Triangle facts) can be found at the Seattle Local Food blog.

Via Roger Highfield

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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Anonymous

Suddenly I understand why anyone would WANT to eat hamantashen, looking at the actual recipe part. I only ever had the horrible dry too-thick-crust ones. These actually look tasty… even before you add the wonderful, wonderful geekery.
Anonymous

My mind painted in nude people at all the the apex points of the triangles. The dough has a remarkly flesh-toned appearance.

Mike
Anonymous

This be some crazy illuminati-kabbalah pie, i like.

Sababa
senorglory

Mazel tov to grandmother z”l.
Anonymous

Mmm… I’m craving a Menger spongecake. Infinite tasty surface area, zero calories.
William George

Deborah Gardner can Tri-Force!
Nawel

On first looking at the picture, I thought I was seeing a triangle entire made of naked human bodies.

What’s wrong with me?
- Maddy
  
  Yup. Me too.
- Anonymous
  
  Thought it was a new Spencer Tunick work.
- Jeremiah Cornelius
  
  @Nawel,
  
  You and me both. My first thoughts were “Clambake Orgy”.
Chong

On first looking at the picture, I thought I was seeing a triforce.

Everything is right with me.
faithmanon

Next Purim, I am so making this. Awesome.
planettom

I see naked people. I see naked people ALL THE TIME.

Seriously, I’m glad some others commented on that, if it were just me, I’d feel really weird.

Sort of reminds me of that Salvador Dali skull made of naked women: http://www.planetperplex.com/en/item/human-skull-consisting-of-seven-naked-womens-bodies/ (As referenced in a movie poster for THE DESCENT).
Brett Myers

I saw a naked sex triangle, too. In fact, I have a hard time NOT seeing it as a naked sex triangle. It’s all flesh and angled limbs and moist red bits.
johndonna

To me, this is a yummy representation of one of Bell’s Tetrahedral Kites!
http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/anthony/kites/tetra/bell/bell_tetra.jpg
Anonymous

Man, I wish I was as sexually imaginative as some of the people in this thread. It must save a lot of money on porn… Ooh, honey, take a look at this cookbook, it’s making me HAWT!
pjcamp

That’s way too much work for a jelly doughnut.
- Sarah Neptune
  
  “That’s way too much work for a jelly doughnut.”
  
  Different holiday! Sufganiyot are the jelly donuts for Hanukkah, and this is hamana-hamana-hamantashen!
  
  Actually, more like HamanTaschen, where Taschen is the publisher of sexy books, given how everyone is seeing this three-cornered cookie.
johndonna

Alexander Graham Bell that is! :o)
Anonymous

I can attest to Debs’ bakerly brilliance. This is but one of her many righteous acts of pastry.
Anonymous

Yo, naked people, stop the hamantaschen Sierpinski triangle masquerade already!
pimlottc

If you just eat a single open triangle at a time, you’ll never run out (theoretically).
kfruit

My wife says she’s waiting to see the Mandelbrot mandelbrot.
rebdav

Still buzzing from Shushan Purim here in Jerusalem!
Next year an oznei Haman Sierpinski triangle in Jerusalem rebuilt!
Anonymous

Wow, after reading the posts about what was being seen at first glance, I don’t feel so bad. But the first impression sure was a little disturbing.