Toby Elefant has been baking hamantaschen for more than 30 years, so she isn’t going to let the COVID-19 pandemic and absence of Purim parties keep her from triangulating dough this year. 

The University City resident who runs her business, Toby’s Challa House & Bake Shop, out of her home enjoys making the three-sided pastries because they are for Purim, “a beautiful yontif [holiday],” she said.

“It’s the day that all of Israel was saved from being annihilated. It’s a very special time of simcha, happiness,” said Elefant, a member of Agudas Israel of St. Louis, an Orthodox congregation.

Elefant uses a recipe she got from a friend she met during elementary school in Far Rockaway, N.Y. This year, she is offering a variety of flavors of her certified kosher and pareve hamantaschen: chocolate-dipped with sprinkles; chocolate; raspberry; apple; lemon and prune. Orders must be placed by Sunday, Feb. 21 and can then be picked up from Elefant’s U. City home. A pound costs $12. To order or for more information, call 314-281-6781 or email [email protected].

Elefant isn’t the only Jewish St. Louis area baker selling these triangle treats. Other local outlets include: 

• Delectable Dough, located inside the Baker’s Hub, 67 Forum Shopping Center in Chesterfield. Jodie Bertish and her team are busy baking hamantaschen for Congregation Shaare Emeth, United Hebrew and Temple Emanuel but they would be glad to make some for you, too. Flavors include poppy, chocolate, cherry, apple, apricot and prune. Each hamantaschen is $1.75. They are not kosher. To order, call 314-295-4898 and ask for Delectable Dough.

• Just Like Mom’s Bakery, where the mother-daughter team of Peggy Umansky and Alana Minoff offer made-to-order homemade hamantaschen flavored on the doughy outside as well as the inside filling. Outside flavors include vanilla, chocolate, rainbow and poppyseed while filling flavors are poppyseed, fruit, chocolate, chocolate chip, chocolate and peanut butter and savory. They can do special requests. No less than six to an order, which costs $10; 12 for $18. Call 314-303-0861 to order and fore details or email [email protected]. Pick-up in Olivette or Chesterfield. Their hamantaschen are not kosher.

• Sprinkles by Miriam, where Miriam Schwab will be whipping up chocolate-flavored hamantaschen filled with marshmallow as well as regular or vanilla flavored dough with chocolate, cherry, raspberry, apricot and “pretty much whatever anyone would like,” she says. 

She bakes in a kosher kitchen at home that is not Vaad certified and charges $12 a pound, which translates into 10 or 11 hamantaschen. Orders need to be placed by Sunday, Feb. 21 by calling 561-542-4923 or emailing her at [email protected]. Pick-up in University City and Schwab is happy to bag or box any orders.