Best Chocolate Chip Mandel Bread Recipe

It's mid-afternoon and after a long day of work, you need a sweet snack to keep you going for the hours you've got left. That's when mandel bread comes in. This delicious recipe is perfect for all chocolate lovers who can never get enough of chocolate everything. Mandel bread gets its name from mandelbrot, which means almond bread in Yiddish and German (via ifood.tv). The beloved Jewish pastry is thought to be connected to Italian biscotti or Sephardic Jewish biscochadas dulces, according to nwitimes.com. 

While the preparation is fairly easy, the baking process can take a long time since you have to bake the bread twice. So this would be a great recipe to make when you have some hours to spare and are looking to unwind by baking. 

"These are best stored in an airtight container, and can definitely last at least a week if stored like that," said recipe developer Jessica Morone from Jess Loves Cooking. "They can also be frozen for up to two months after baking them, or you can freeze the dough for several months before baking them because this recipe does make a lot and not everyone wants them all baked at once." That can also reduce the time needed to make these twice-baked cookies.

It's time to assemble your ingredients. Let's start with the dry ones: You will use flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, chocolate chips, and ground cinnamon. If you want to make this a gluten-free recipe, feel free to replace the all-purpose flour with the gluten-free flour of your choice. You can also opt to replace the chocolate chips with any chopped nuts or fruits you would rather use, Morone said.

As for the wet ingredients, you will need vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and eggs. Almond extract is optional if you want to add more of a nutty flavor to your recipe. Now, let's get down to cooking.

You're going to start by mixing the flour, baking powder, salt, and ground cinnamon in a bowl. Let it sit while you work with the other ingredients. 

In a separate bowl, cream together the vegetable oil, a cup of sugar, and the vanilla and almond extracts. Break the eggs into the bowl and blend until the batter starts to thicken. Pour the contents from the first bowl into the second one and continue mixing until it becomes a uniform dough. Sprinkle in the chocolate chips and mix well until they are evenly spread throughout your batter.

Indulge yourself by taking a whiff of the cookie dough aroma, because you won't be smelling your finished cookies for a couple of hours. 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for approximately one to two hours. The dough needs to be cold and firm. 

Now that the bread dough is ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 F. While the oven heats up, turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it in two. You're going to shape each chunk into a long rectangle, about three to four inches wide, 12 inches long, and one inch thick. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and place one dough half onto each of them. Place the two baking sheets in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. 

Once each mandel bread has a light, golden brown color, remove them from the oven and let them cool for at least 15 minutes. Meanwhile, lower the oven heat to 250 F. You're going to use it again in a few minutes.

After the bread chunks have cooled down, cut them into one-inch-thick slices and place them on their sides back on the baking sheets. Now mix the remaining sugar and ground cinnamon to create cinnamon sugar and sprinkle it on the mandel bread slices. Flip them over and continue sprinkling so they're coated on both sides.

Return the baking sheets to the oven and bake the sliced mandel bread for 25 to 30 minutes again, until they look golden brown and crispy. After they cool down, they are ready to serve. 

"This goes with all hot drinks like tea and coffee, but because these aren't hard and dry like biscotti, you don't need to dip these in something hot like you would with one of those," Morone said. "You can just eat these by themselves, they are delicious."