Recipe Courtesy of Judy Bart Kancigor – Excerpted from “Cooking Jewish”


My friend Dede Ginter tested this recipe for me, and her husband Ed’s AK /(alter kocker)/Poker Club gave these light and crispy cookies sixteen thumbs up. If a recipe called for chocolate chips, you could always
count on Aunt Estelle to use lots. She should have named these Passover Downfall. Enough said. Mom says “ditto.”

• Parchment paper or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheet
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter or nondairy margarine, at room
• temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon Passover vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups matzoh cake meal
• 3/4 cup potato starch
• 4 cups (two 12-ounce bags) semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a baking sheet, or better yet, line it with parchment paper.

2.Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.   Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl several times. Then beat in the vanilla. Reduce
the speed to low, and add the cake meal and potato starch. Scrape the bowl, and blend just until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.(If the dough feels too sticky to handle even with floured hands,
cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate until it is stiff, 30 minutes to several hours.)

3.Divide the dough into 4 portions. Flour your hands with cake meal, and form each portion into a log the length of the baking sheet. Space the logs evenly on the prepared baking sheet, and bake on the center oven
rack until they are golden and the tops are firm to the touch, 30 minutes.

4.Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the logs cool for 3 minutes. Then, using a serrated knife, cut each log diagonally into 3/4-inch-thick slices. Place the slices, cut side down, on the baking sheet and bake on the center oven rack until golden brown, 10 minutes. Turn the cookies onto the unbaked side. Turn the oven off and put the baking sheet back in the oven. Leave it there for 15 to 30 minutes for
softer mandelbrot, longer for crisper ones. (I leave them in until the oven has cooled completely, as we like them really crisp.) Let the mandelbrot cool completely on the sheet set on a wire rack.

5.Store in an airtight plastic container at room temperature for up to 1 week.

Makes about 6 dozen