The sweet scent of cherry blossom mingled with warm vanilla as my mother’s arms wrapped around me, hands closing gently over mine on the rough wood. Pressing down, together we rolled out the dough, soft and warm and gooey; it stuck to the rolling pin, wrapping around it as I giggled and pulled it off. My mother’s warmth moved away, but she was back before I could glance up to look for her. Red nails with silver snowflakes sprinkled a white powder, soft but just slightly gritty, onto the sticky dough.

The pains of baking in those days were small, insignificant: the cookie cutter pressing just a little too sharply into my hands; a runny nose and watery eyes, the remainder of a flour-induced sneeze; the color of the frosting being “too pink and not enough purple, Mommy”; my older sister stealing the last of the reindeer cookies; the sprinkles that coated my lips giving away my thievery…

This is my prevailing memory of my first forays into the culinary world: surrounded by my mother’s loving warmth and guidance and, yes, sometimes exasperation, creating any young child’s favorite treat, and making an absolute, glorious mess while doing it.

My family has always been a family of the heart, not of blood. With my blood relatives spread all across the country, get-togethers were few and far between, so my friends and those of my parents, as well as my neighbors, became my family. By blood, I have one sister, but really, I have three sisters and three brothers: the six children I grew up and spent every holiday and tradition with.

Christmas time especially was one of traditions, of Secret Santas and clumsily wrapped gifts, of bedtime stories and “Daddy, just one more,” of “Mommy, can I please” and twinkling red and green lights, of reindeer food and “Can you hear the bells, I think he’s on the roof”, of joy and laughter and hugs and kisses, of Christmas carols sung at the tops of our lungs. Of family. Of hope. Of love.

And the enduring tradition, no matter what trials, tribulations, or triumphs, was that of creating Christmas cookies. Heavily frosted and sprinkled sugar cookies shaped like Santa and bells and Christmas trees and reindeer and presents; dry and powdery, glaze-getting-on-my-fingers blueberry scones; gonna-have-to-floss-after-this oatmeal and cinnamon chip cookies, our Christmas version of the traditional chocolate chip; and my favorite, warm, crumbling pecan sandies, confectioner’s sugar melting in your mouth just like the butter that made them.

What was equally traditional in my family, however, was the encouragement from our parents to explore, to innovate, to discover, and to try new things. As such, it came as no surprise to my mother that I complained one year of being bored.

“We always make the same cookies, Mama,” I had told her in my all-knowing ten-year-old voice. “Can’t we do something else?”

“Absolutely, sweet pea,” she told me, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “What do you want to do instead?”

Out came the stepstool, and up I clambered, opening the cabinet door that led to the treasure trove to beat all treasure troves. I grasped brown plastic, rough and brittle, in my small hands, the familiar green and white cursive of my great-grandmother, my GG, proudly proclaiming across the lid that this was “Katy’s Recipe Box”. And tucked at the back were the collection of dessert recipes, cakes and cookies and pastries all mixed together.

It took me a while, at that time, to get through the recipes. My grandmother’s scrawling script took dedication to decipher, and my GG’s tiny letters gave me a headache in a short time. But it was amongst my mother’s familiar cursive that I cured myself of the dietary doldrums.

Mandel bread.

Well, this doesn’t look too hard, I remember thinking at the time.

Little did I know.

Truly, though, the recipe for mandel bread is incredibly simple, at least compared to other family recipes. Flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and baking powder mixed with some eggs. Then add the almonds and, if so desired (and ten-year-old me definitely so desired), chocolate chips.

The real problem, though, wasn’t in mixing the ingredients. In fact, at that age, I had been in the kitchen long enough to consider that the boring part.

No, the real problem lied in the fact that mandel bread is baked in two ways. The first way is to simply bake it for an hour. The second way, and the way I set my heart on early in the process, was to double bake it.

Much like the first baking process, I had to form the dough into a loaf, which was hard because I was still rather small at the time with little hands and equally short arms.

“Mama,” I called less than thirty seconds into my kneading of the dough. “Mama, help!”

In she came and instead of helping her youngest in her hour of need, my mother chose to laugh. Of course, I’m sure the sight of her ten-year-old with a large, russet brown, lumpy mass hanging off the ends of her arms where her hands should be could be counted as amusing. But at the time, it fell under the category of “Mama is being mean to me (cue whining)”.

At the end of the day, however, she is a mother, so she bustled over with sleeves rolled up and carefully scraped my hands free of the sticky dough before helping me shape the mess.

Now this dough looked as far from loaf-like as it could. In fact, it looked much closer to a grainy, wet, half-flattened worm than a loaf of bread. Even so, I got that dough into its wormy shape and into the oven it went for twenty minutes.

For whatever reason, at that age, I thought that the dough would have cooked far more than it did, so when I pulled it out, I expected to see that nice, flaky golden brown crust. You know, the kind you see on a croissant? Instead, I just saw the same lump of dirty worm that had gone into the oven minutes before. Only now it was just a little flatter.

And following that was an equally concerning and immensely difficult challenge. I had to take that sticky, half-baked dough and cut it into slices.

I don’t know if anyone else has tried to do the same thing, but that task quickly became more difficult than crossing the Sahara.

The dough continued to glue itself to everything. My fingers, the knife, the pan, itself…within five minutes, I was quite ready to throw in the towel and call it quits.

But Momma ain’t raised no quitter, and Momma was also pretty close at hand so wasn’t about to let me quit. Again, she stood by to soothe and verbally guide, but she left me in control of every action and decision.

My sliced mandel bread soon found itself back in the oven for another thirty minutes, and when it came out the final time, I began to tear up.

“What’s wrong, sweet pea?” Mama asked.

“It looks awful!” I cried, staring at the rather shipwrecked pieces of my mandel bread.

“But I’m sure it still tastes good,” she comforted.

Stubbornly, I denied that anything that looked so mangled and pitiful could taste anything like that manna from Heaven I had imagined.

“Well, why don’t you try a bite and see?” Came the firm direction and implied warning that I needed to stop my whining.

And I did. I picked up one of those still warm slices of mandel bread and brought it to my mouth. Warm cinnamon filled my nostrils, the aromatic quintessence of Christmas sending shockwaves of pleasure to my brain. Gooey chocolate chip oozed onto my fingers, still hot enough to sting and burn. I opened my mouth and inhaled and could just taste the way the treat would melt, utterly dissolve, in my mouth. I bit down.

And my mandel bread crunched. Crunched. How in the world could that sticky, lumpy worm of dough turn into something that could crunch? I was in too much shock to even finish biting through the piece.

“It’s too hard!” I immediately complained.

“Rachel Marie,” my mother sighed, eyes sliding up and searching the canned-light-ceiling as if it could take her place or maybe whack me one for her. “You actually have to eat the whole thing before you can make a judgment.”

I snuffled, torn between being upset that my perfect mandel bread had turned into a Christmas monster and my mother was decidedly unsympathetic, and still wanting to truly taste, really experience, the glory that my nose told my brain it would live through if I just finished that slice.

I raised the mandel bread back to my mouth and grimaced through the initial crunch. Then soft, nutty, dense deliciousness coated my tongue. I chewed, licking my lips even as I took another bite. Another crunch, then the same cinnamon-and-chocolate-and-all-that-is-good-during-Christmas-flavor burst like a supernova in my mouth.

“Well?” Mama prompted, blue eyes sparkling.

I swallowed.

“Can we make this again next year?” I asked.

Mama smiled.

 

Mandel Bread Recipe

6 eggs                                                  2 ½ c sugar

1 teaspoon nutmeg                              2 tablespoons cinnamon

2 ½ c whole unprocessed almonds     Approx. 3 ¼ c flour

1/3 teaspoon baking powder              1 pinch of salt

2 c chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Stir the eggs with sugar and spices.
2. Add the almonds, flour, baking powder and salt to make a firm dough. Optional: Add chocolate chips.
3. Shape into two loaves.
4. Bake at 350*F for twenty minutes (thirty minutes if you added chocolate chips).
5. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Cut loaves into slices.
6. Return to oven for another 15 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Enjoy!