Aunt Rose's Mondel Bread

To be honest, I've never really been super into biscotti. I personally find them too hard and too dry, and while I know they're meant to be that way so they can be dunked into coffee or tea, I find that doesn't really do much to make them actually enjoyable. This recipe is very similar to biscotti, and I will save you the time and tell you that it wasn't the cookie for me and that it didn't really change my mind about the biscotti family of cookies. However, this recipe is more than that - it's a memory and a sentiment, and that's not really something that can be judged.

I had never heard of mondel bread before making this recipe. Apparently, it's a cookie originating in the Ashkenazi Jewish community that, like I said, is very similar to biscotti. However, they're baked slightly differently - while biscotti are usually baked once in a large slab, then cut into slices and baked a second time (hence the name, meaning "twice cooked"), mondel bread are baked fully in slab form and cut into slices afterward. They're entirely dairy-free, using oil as the main fat in keeping with Jewish dietary laws. This version is studded with toasted slivered almonds and dusted in cinnamon sugar ("mondel" means "almond" in Yiddish). Claire says in the headnote that this is her mom's Aunt Rose's recipe, but it's likely it's existed in her family for generations before that - her great-grandfather worked as a baker before emigrating to the United States. I think it's really cool that this recipe has existed in her family for so long, and that she's kept her family's baking tradition alive.

Claire also says in the headnote that the version here is as faithful to her family's original recipe as possible and that she's resisted the urge to make any changes (aside from the addition of some salt). I love this mentality - in a world of food where everyone is obsessed with tweaking minuscule details and testing dozens of times to create the "perfect" version of a recipe, it's almost liberating to say "this is the way we've always done it" and "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". It frees you from these superficial ideas of perfection, and it shows reverence to those very wise people who came before you. There are a few steps in this recipe, like coating the almonds with oil and then with flour after tossing, as well as letting the dough rest for 4 hours, uncovered, in the fridge, that seem counterintuitive, but it's how it's always been done and they turn out alright every time. That being said, you can definitely tell that Claire was trying very hard not to let any of her baking expertise infringe on tradition. She interjects the recipe with a few shady remarks questioning the effectiveness and validity of certain steps, which I find funny. It reminds me a lot of my reactions when I read some of my grandma's recipes. She's a great cook and baker, but she's a little stuck in her ways, so I'll often find notes like "I use less sugar" or "NO SALT" in all caps, or "I bake mine a little longer" (she still doesn't understand that baked goods don't have to be totally dry to be ready to take out of the oven).

This is a very thick dough. Claire uses a stand mixer in the recipe, and I understand why, but it's also doable with a hand mixer. I'd know, because that's what I did. These cookies are baked in a really unique way - they're formed into large slabs which are then scored and sprinkled with some of the cinnamon sugar before baking for 30 minutes. The loaves are then flipped over, sprinkled with more cinnamon sugar, and baked for 15 minutes an additional two times. Claire said that the score marks would "completely disappear when you bake the loaves", but I actually found that they were still present, albeit vaguely, and that her mom and Aunt Rose were right about them helping you cut the cookies. The slab was definitely a little odd-looking, and there was a ton of stray cinnamon sugar surrounding it that hadn't melted or caramelized, but once they were cut into cookies they looked very similar to classic biscotti.

I should mention that while the recipe makes three loaves, I scaled down the recipe and only made one. I had no issues doing so. I said in the beginning that if you don't like biscotti, this cookie probably isn't going to convert you. It's definitely a hard, dry type of cookie - not so hard you'll break your teeth trying to bite into it, but it's still decidedly moisture-less, if that's a word. I understand that it was designed that way to be able to a) keep for a very long time and b) dunk in coffee or tea, but it just doesn't really feel super enjoyable for me to eat. Some of the center parts of the thicker cookies were a bit softer, though. Flavorwise, there's not that much going on. Sure, there's the addition of toasted almonds and cinnamon, but otherwise, the cookie reads very plain. Perhaps if you enjoy very simple, plainly sweet things that go well with coffee or tea, you'll enjoy this cookie, but it just wasn't for me. That being said, it wasn't a bad cookie by any means, so I'll be slightly generous with my rating.

Verdict: 6/10

Sure, I just spent the last paragraph describing, in detail, my thoughts regarding these cookies, but I've realized that's not really what this recipe is about. I don't want to speak for Claire, but I'm assuming she chose to put this recipe in the book because it's extremely sentimental to her and brings back wonderful family memories, and possibly because, for her, it was one of those fundamental recipes that fostered her love for baking at an early age. Sure, it doesn't have that same sentimental value to me, but I can understand that feeling nonetheless. We all have recipes that we grew up with, that run deeply in our family, that are equally feelings and memories as they are foods. It doesn't matter how good they objectively taste; what matters is that they taste like home. I'm not entirely sure what my family's "mondel bread" is. My mom's side of the family is of Croatian and Serbian ancestry, but my grandma has historically viewed her cultural background slightly unfavorably, so not a lot of those traditional recipes made their way to my mom or to me on her part. My dad's side of the family, of Scandinavian and British Isles heritage, has been in the country long enough to have assimilated and lost most of their ancestral culture. However, we've had fun rediscovering some parts of it. A couple Christmases ago we got out my grandma's old rosette irons. Rosettes are Swedish cookies that are deep-fried, batter-based, and molded into intricate little flower shapes. Deep-frying was a process, and they definitely turned out less than perfect, but it was still super fun and cool to have this little time capsule of how my family lived several generations ago.

My grandma on my mother's side, the only surviving grandparent I have left, is 94 now. Sure, she's a little frailer than she used to be, but she's still hanging on with gusto, and she hasn't let go of her trademark bluntness and sassy spirit. She's lived a tough but interesting life - she was the daughter of immigrants who came of age during World War II and, from the ever-changing stories she shares with us, had a rebellious streak in high school. She witnessed a plane crash firsthand in her 20s, and to this day refuses to fly. Her husband, my grandfather, who I never got to meet, passed away from cancer in the '80s, when my mother was only 19. It's crazy to think I'm older now than my mother was when she had to go through that. My grandmother, a product of the 1950s, was then forced to get a job as a teacher's aide to provide for herself and her family. She loves basketball, has it on pretty much every time I visit her, and might just be the biggest Kings fan out there. Everyone thinks she's going to live to 100, but I'm cautious not to jinx it. It's strange, when I write about these things, I realize that my family means so much more to me than I think. I'm still super close to them, but things are a little difficult in some respects. My grandma still hasn't wrapped her head around the fact that I'm gay. It's not that she's intentionally homophobic, she's just of a time when that wasn't really a thing that existed, at least in the public consciousness. I know she'll support me, but I'm still dealing with the fact that she'll never truly understand what that means. That ignorance isn't an entirely bad thing, though. She was the only person, I was told, who would look after one of my mom's cousins, a trans woman who ultimately passed away from AIDS. She didn't understand what it meant to be transgender, and I don't think she ever respected her name or pronouns, but she hugged her at a time when most others were afraid to, and that meant a lot to her. Similarly, my aunt is a single mother who had a daughter through IVF in her 50s. It was definitely an adjustment we all had to make mentally, but I can tell that little girl has brought my grandma a newfound sense of joy. It's funny, I have one half-cousin who's around ten years older than I am and two cousins who are around ten years younger. I think that after those years of my brother and I being younger have passed, my grandma really enjoys being "grandma" all over again, and it's given her a sense of purpose during her older years. I really admire the people in my family, and I know that if it wasn't for their bravery and kindness, I wouldn't be where I am today.