Recipe for Passover Chocolate Chip Mandelbrot

Parchment paper or vegetable cooking spray, for the baking sheet

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter or nondairy margarine, at room  temperature

2 cups sugar

6 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon kosher-for-Passover  vanilla

2½ cups matzoh cake meal

¾ cup potato starch

4 cups (two 12-ounce bags) semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray it. Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping the bowl several times. Then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the speed to low, and add the cake meal and potato starch. Scrape the bowl and blend just until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. If the dough feels too sticky to handle even with floured hands, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate until it is stiff, 30 minutes to several hours. Divide the dough into 4 portions. Flour your hands with cake meal, and form each portion into a log the length of the baking sheet. Space the logs evenly on the prepared baking sheet and bake on the center oven rack until they are golden and the tops are firm to the touch, 30 minutes.

2. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the logs cool for 3 minutes. Then, using a serrated knife, cut each log on the diagonal into ¾-inch-thick slices. Place the slices, cut side down, on the baking sheet and bake on the center oven rack until golden brown, 10 minutes. Turn the cookies onto the unbaked side. Turn the oven off and put the baking sheet back in the oven. Leave it there for 15 to 30 minutes for softer mandelbrot, longer for crisper ones. (To achieve very crisp cookies, leave them in until the oven has cooled completely.) Let the mandelbrot cool completely on the sheet set on a wire rack before serving.

Note: If the baking sheet is smaller than 17-by-12 inches, use two. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and rotate the sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking and crisping.

- From The Perfect Passover Cookbook by Judy Bart Kancigor (Workman Short, 2011, available as a downloadable e-book, excerpted from Cooking Jewish)

Per cookie: 121 calories, 1 grams protein, 16 grams carbohydrates, 11 grams sugar, 6 grams fat, 24 cholesterol, 52 milligrams sodium, trace dietary fiber