This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe from Dorie’s Cookies was one I’d never heard of before – kamish – and the recipe was contributed to Dorie’s Cookies by my good friend Adell Shneer (who’s worked with my Petits Chefs many times over the years making cookies of a different kind!)
Dorie says:
When I was very young, my grandmother, a wonderful baker, used to come to visit us with boxes of sweets. There’d be sugar cookies (some with poppy seeds); apple squares; heavy, moist honey cakes; and mandelbrot, a crunchy cookie that didn’t interest me. Sadly, by the time I came to appreciate those sweets — think of them as the Eastern European version of biscotti — my grandmother was no longer alive to make them. But there are many other grandmothers, and I have tasted many of their mandelbrots, all good, but none as wonderful as this one from Toby Reichert, which she refers to as kamish. I first had it in Toronto, where her daughter, Adell Shneer, a food editor there, made the cookies for me. Since then, they’ve been the standard against which I measure all other mandelbrot.
Mandelbrot is Yiddish for “almond bread” and, indeed, while some people add chocolate chips, dried fruit or coconut, as Toby does, if it doesn’t have almonds, then your cookie can’t be considered a member of the mandel tribe. Toby’s addition of coconut is both unusual and inspired, as is the way she sprinkles cinnamon-sugar and coconut on the cookies before they return to the oven for their second bake.
Adell added a note to the recipe, explaining that her mother sometimes leaves the cookies in the oven to dry overnight because they are best really toasty and crisp. I think they’re perfection without the overnight rest, but if you think drier, crisper and toastier would be even more to your liking, turn on the oven and leave them there until morning. (Just remember they’re there before you preheat the oven to bake something else.)
This was a super easy recipe – came together in around 20 minutes (then the dough goes into the fridge to rest before you roll and bake, then slice and re-bake). I used sliced almonds because that’s what I had on hand. I think they make for a pretty cookie when it’s sliced and baked…
I’m not a huge fan of cinnamon so while I did roll the cookie logs in cinnamon sugar, I simply sprinkled the tops with a little coconut sugar (which I have discovered doesn’t really caramelize in the oven) instead of the cinnamon/ sugar/ shredded coconut the recipe calls for (sorry Adell!).
I halved the recipe to make approximately 36 cookies (I sliced them a tad smaller than 1/2-inch too) and, as Adell instructed, I left them in the oven overnight. What resulted was a lovely crispy on the outside but a little soft on the inside cookie that is perfect with an espresso. They are not too sweet either which I really love. These will be my “go to” almond bread from now on – I like that they are not super hard and crunchy like a lot of biscotti/ almond bread.
Get the recipe for Dorie Greenspan’s Kamish on page 280 of Dorie’s Cookies.
Want more cookie recipes? Buy Dorie’s Cookies on Amazon
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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “Dorie’s Cookies” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing so. All opinions 100% my own.
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These were good and smelled amazing in the oven. How fun that you know the recipe creator’s daughter.
I can smell them…. lovely
i do like your use of sliced almonds– they look so nicely stacked thought the cookie (maybe that would have made them easier to cut than my big chunks. too). i also liked these a lot.
How wonderful that Adell shared her recipe. I am looking forward to making these.