MandelBread or Mandelbrot-Delectable By Any Name: What Would Jessie Dish? Week 12 (2024)

I have absolutely no recollection of this recipe from my childhood. As part of my grandmother Jessie’s recently discovered files, “mandlebread” is a fantastic recipe. Either I had never eaten this cookie or simply cannot remember it. For a child, perhaps it is too hard as cookies go? Mandlebrot does not go as well with milk, say, rather than with tea – ugh for most kids – or coffee – double ugh. It is also devoid of chocolate, so I might not have cared for them, obliterating the memories of one try from my mind.

The recipe is very specific with its directions and was a breeze to follow – with one odd exception: “nuts”. “Mandel” is “almond”, so I suspect Jessie just knew to use them – rather than other favourites of hers, such as pecans or walnuts. A mandelbrot, or, mandelbrodt, is an middle-European counterpart to biscotti, made typically with almonds (“mandel”, in both German and Yiddish, “brot” meaning “bread”). Mandelbrot has made a bit of a comeback in cookie-dom, along with the resurgence in world-wide coffee-culture (in this iteration, think Starbucks and free WiFi as opposed to Le Procope in Paris and “philosophers cafes”).

Around age 70, Jessie enjoyed the Mayan ruins in Mexico.

What I found amusing about this recipe is that I could not find a photo which somehow would correspond. So I chose one of my grandmother at the ruins of Uxmal on a winter getaway to Mexico around 1974. Jessie visited Israel right after Egypt a few years before her trip to Mexico (and I have used the one photo I have from that tour already) but never went to middle-European destinations (e.g., Austria, Hungary, or Germany, where mandelbrot once reigned supreme), so the Mayan setting will have to do!

Mandelbrot with flowers from our gardens (courtesy of CJM Floral Engineering, Inc.)

For the cookie’s character and the recipe…

I enjoyed following Jessie’s recipe and making this fine cookie. As I had never made either biscotti or mandlebrot before, I expected it to be more time-consuming or even finnicky. However, this recipe turned out to be fast to prepare and very straight forward.

The cookies turned out to be substantial, with enough heft to hold up when dipped in hot coffee or tea (espresso, cappuccino, or vin santo would work as accompaniments, too). The almonds provide a crunchy textural counterpart to a tight but not rock-hard crumb; I feared these might turn out like the not-so-stellar biscotti (why not call them what they are: inferior and stale) one finds in many coffee houses these days. Yet I do believe that mandelbrot is generally not quite as hard as good authentic biscotti. With the dusting of cinnamon-sugar all over the cookies, there is a burst of flavour and an additional crystalline crunch. This definitely is one of my favourites of Jessie’s recipes I have prepared to-date.

Perfect for afternoon tea or coffee, Jessie's mandelbread is on her wedding china here.

While I had not considered this during the baking, the mandelbrot would be even better dipped half-way into dark chocolate, maybe with a touch of cayenne. Oh, that must be the connection to Mexico I was seeking above! Whatever you call this cookie, Jessie’s “mandlebread” is a toothsome treat.