Mother's Day Mandelbrodt (Mandelbread)

Happy Mother's Day!
(look at the ducks!)
peace, love and mandelbrodt.

My Grandma Rae made the best mandelbrodt.  It had no butter.  I don't think anything she baked had butter. She kept a kosher home, and by omitting butter, her desserts could be eaten any old time.

She used Mazola corn oil (and other horrible non-dairy fats like margarine and something called "Spry".)

This recipe uses oil and is much closer to hers than the richer biscotti recipes I've published here.  Corn oil isn't as healthful as, say, canola oil, but I love to bake with it.  It's sweet. In the absence of butterfat, The taste of the almonds are pronounced by the oil rather than 'softened' by the roundness of butterfat.

These are hard to stop eating.  They're simple and taste like their ingredients.

Grandma Rae's greatest pleasure was to feed the people who came to her home.  She was my best Grandma, and I miss her all the time (you can read more about her in my "möhn kichel" recipe, another oil-based and brilliant basic Jewish "tea cookie".) It's almost mother's day, and the photograph of my in my toque is a gift from my beautiful daughter.  She embroidered it for me.  It says, "Blue Heron Kitchen" and it sports a heron on its brim.  Thanks, sweetheart!

Mandelbrodt (Mandelbread)

Adapted from Arthur Schwartz by Blue Heron Kitchen, in honor and memory of my Grandma Rae

Ingredients:

4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. kosher salt

4 eggs, size large, at room temperature

1 1/3 cups granulated sugar

¾ cup corn oil (or any tasteless vegetable oil)

½ tsp. pure almond extract

1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract

Zest from one large orange

2 cups coarsely chopped almonds (see almond trucs below)

Procedure:

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat and preheat oven to 350º F.

Almond truc: Valencia almonds are great to use.  Organic ones are even better.  The better and fresher the nut, the better the cookie.  Release the oil! Toast the nuts on a cookie sheet until you can just begin to smell them.  Be careful they don’t burn.  If they do, you’ll end up with mandelburndt.  Let them cool first and then chop them.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a Kitchen Aid or ‘other’ electric mixer, preferably fitted with a fabulous beater blade attachment, beat the eggs well, until light in color. 

Add the sugar, a little at a time, continuing to beat until the mixture is thick and creamy.  This will take a few minutes.

Add the oil (I use corn oil, because my Grandma Rae used Mazola corn oil for everything), extracts and orange zest to the eggs.  Beat briefly until blended.

Dump in the flour, all at once and mix on lowest speed until barely incorporated.  Add the almonds and mix until just blended.  Finish by hand.

Turn out onto floured flat surface and cut into four equal parts. 

With as little handling as possible (use flour and a large spatula to manage the dough), form into four loaves, approximately 12” x 2 ½” – 3” in width, depending upon how wide you prefer your cookies, two to a sheet, lengthwise.  Space them at least 4” apart.

Bake approximately 30-45 minutes, transferring sheets top to bottom, front to back, half way through the first bake, until golden.

Remove from oven and let cool on rack for a few minutes, leaving the oven on.

With a serrated knife, slice on diagonal, approximately ½” thick (or ¾” if you like your cookie thick) and return the cookies, slice sides down, to the sheets. 

Bake for 5 minutes, turn cookies over and bake 5 additional minutes.  Finished cookies should be golden brown.

Cool the cookies on racks.  When completely cooled, store in an airtight container.  These will taste even better the next day (if you can wait).