Kamish (Mandelbrot) (Almond Bread)

This Tuesdays with Dorie assignment from Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan is for Kamish, which is a mandelbrot (almond bread) recipe. The name Kamish comes from a woman named Toby Reichert, whose mandelbrot recipe was deemed as good as Dorie’s own grandmother’s version. This recipe is very simple, but it takes a little bit of time to complete because it bakes twice. The end result is very similar to a mini-cinnamon-sugar-covered biscotti.

The ingredients for the Kamish are very basic: sugar, flour, eggs, oil, vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and almonds. This was one of the few times I didn’t have to go out and buy additional ingredients before baking. 

This recipe lives up to the almondy mandelbrot name. The first step is to chop up 2 cups of almonds. 

The dry ingredients were whisked together and set aside. The smell of cinnamon was so nice, I whisked the ingredients longer than necessary just so I could enjoy the smell more.

The liquids were whisked next. I whisked eggs and sugar until they were a pale yellow. This would have been much easier to do with a stand mixer, but I guess I could have used the workout.

More whisking. I added oil and vanilla to the egg mixture. My arm was feeling the burn!

I gently mixed the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, being careful not to overdo it.

The last addition was the chopped almonds. I gave the mixture a last good stir before popping the dough into the fridge.

The dough was very soft, but firmed up after resting in the refrigerator for an hour. I divided the dough into fourths and rolled each quarter into logs. I didn’t include a photo of the logs because they looked like…well, they weren’t very appetizing.

The Kamish dough puffed up nicely while they baked, and ended up looking a lot nicer than when they were just strips of dough.

I was worried about the next step: slicing the logs into 1/2-inch pieces. Dorie’s recipe, spooked me into thinking everything was going to crumble as I sliced the Kamish log. I am so glad that Dorie said to use a long serrated knife!

Miraculously, I only had one sad casualty; all of the other pieces survived!

I sprinkled the slices with a cinnamon-sugar mixture and baked them again to crisp them up a bit.

This recipe is very reminiscent of biscotti, but much lighter in texture. The Kamish cookies are nice and crisp, a little on the dry side, and aren’t overly sweet; the sprinkling of cinnamon-sugar on top of the Kamish reminded me of a grown-up version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The recipe from Dorie’s Cookies includes coconuts, but I omitted them because I’m not a fan. Overall, I really enjoyed this recipe! Good pick, Tuesdays with Dorie group!

Kamish recipe is on page 280 of Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan.