Saratoga News

Dining

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Saratoga's Maureen Schneider holds a cookie sheet filled with Passover chocolate nut mandelbrot, hot out of the oven.

At Passover, mandelbread is biscotti's Jewish cousin

By Suzanne Cristallo

The Book of Exodus in the Bible says Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, where they had been enslaved for 400 years. It was a hurried escape from a wicked pharaoh--so fast, in fact, that the bread dough the people brought with them did not have a chance to rise. The resulting bread was hard and flat.

Today, as it has been ever since, bread consumed by Jews during Passover, a festival to commemorate the exodus, is baked without leaven, symbolizing the bread of Moses' time.

Passover this year begins at sundown April 12 and lasts eight days. On the first or first and second nights of the holiday, cakes, cookies and breads containing no leavening agents are served at Seders, or special suppers. Typical of these is mandelbread, Yiddish for an almond, biscotti-like cookie. Instead of leavening, matzah, matzah meal or matzah flour are substituted. The result can be brittle and, some say, not too tasty.

"Any recipe that produces something that actually tastes good is considered a luxury," jokes Michelle Gabriel of Saratoga. Gabriel recently published a book filled with those luxuries titled, I Never Met a Mandelbread I Didn't Like! It's a collection of 59 recipes with history and trivia submitted by 50 individuals from all over the country, including several from Los Gatos and Saratoga. At $16.24 a copy, including tax, the book is being used as a fundraiser for Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley, so it can deliver Passover items to folks with special needs, such as shut-ins and isolated seniors. To get a copy, call 408.556.0600.

Longtime Saratogan Maureen Schneider contributed a recipe for Passover chocolate nut mandelbrot to the book that has been in her family for generations. Gabriel describes it as a "particularly wonderful mandelbread brownie."

For Passover celebrants who don't care to make their own mandelbread or cakes, the Prolific Oven of Saratoga, 18832 Cox Ave., is offering two cakes without flour: strawberry banana and chocolate orange. Also available are almond paste macaroons and chocolate orange cookies.

Safeway Stores in both Saratoga and Los Gatos has a display of cakes and cookies. At Gene's Fine Foods, 18850 Cox Ave., in Saratoga, a display of more than 20 items includes gefilte fish, kedem juices, noodle pudding and matzah crackers. Call 408.379.8300.

Whole Foods Market, 15980 Los Gatos Blvd. in Los Gatos, has an extensive Passover display including organic matzah, matzah balls, matzah meal, organic grape juice and gefilte fish. Other items are on sale throughout the store. Call 408.358.4434.

Passover chocolate
nut mandelbrot

2 cups sugar

1/2 pound margarine

6 eggs

2 3/4 cups matzah cake meal

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup potato starch

6 oz. mini chocolate chips

1 cup chopped walnuts

Cream sugar and margarine. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each. Sift dry ingredients. Fold into egg mixture. Add chips and nuts. Mix well. Form batter into two or three loaves, 2 inches wide, on a greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle top with a mixture of: 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 2 teaspoons sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes. Check after 35 minutes. Slice while warm. Place slices on cookie sheet. Return to oven for crispiness. Watch carefully to see they don't get overdone.