Claire Saffitz's Four Generation Mondel Bread

In June of 2019, baker and writer Claire Saffitz was writing her cookbook Dessert Person. “I was feeling really behind on everything, so I took a month away from New York…. I called it my sabbatical,” she explains. “But that was really just a euphemism for moving in with my parents,” she jokingly clarifies. For that month, Claire and her mother Sharon, who goes by Sauci, baked together and Claire wrote recipes. 

When Claire reached the cookie chapter, she knew she wanted to include the mondel bread (also spelled mandel bread, and mandelbrot in Yiddish) she grew up with, a recipe that’s loaded with toasted almonds and finished with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. Claire and her family have made the recipe for generations. It’s the recipe Sauci brings when she goes to a friend’s home. It’s made for holidays, for kiddush gatherings after bar and bat mitzvahs (including Claire’s), and for parties. It’s also sent in the mail to loved ones far off. Before Sauci, her mother Anne made the recipe — a fact Claire confirms during our interview by conferencing in her mother. 

In the family, the recipe is credited to Sauci’s late aunt Rose, but it likely came from Rose’s father, Claire’s great-grandfather Jacob. As Claire and her mother baked one day during her sabbatical, Sauci “said super offhandedly, ‘Oh, well, your great-grandfather was a baker,’” Claire recalls. “I sort of did a double take.” Jacob was a baker in a now-forgotten small village in what Claire believes was then Russia (present-day Ukraine) before he immigrated to the United States. He came through Ellis Island in 1902 or 1903, likely bringing recipes with him like the mondel bread and another for apple cake. 

“The family history on my mom’s side beyond a generation is very fuzzy,” Claire admits. But the history and recipes seem to fall into place. “It does explain why A) we have these recipes and B) why they are all pareve,” says Claire, referring to a dish that’s free of dairy or meat, meaning it can be served at any kosher meal. 

Generations later, the mondel bread’s popularity has spread. “My parents have been married for so long... that it became a recipe on my dad’s side as well,” Claire explains. Still, she admits that mondel bread, for those unfamiliar with it, can be a tough sell. “It’s really crumbly, and hard, and dry. It doesn’t sound good at all, but it’s so delicious,” says Claire. “You’re eating it and you just sort of can’t figure out why it’s so good, but it is.”