Having tea and a citrus cake is a family custom. I did a lot of research and came up with this recipe because I wanted to be able to enjoy this tasty dessert while watching my diet and sugar intake. It has a lovely orange flavor and is quite moist, not to mention it will make your house smell fantastic. I swear it doesn’t taste like olive oil; I just cooked it with it. I do hope you like it!
| Prep Time: | 45 mins |
| Cook Time: | 55 mins |
| Additional Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 2 to 2 1/2 dozen cookies |
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole almonds
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup white sugar
- ½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped orange zest
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spread almonds onto a baking sheet and toast in preheated oven until fragrant, 6 to 8 minutes. Cool, then coarsely chop the almonds.
- Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a baking sheet.
- Combine butter, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, lemon zest, and orange zest in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until well blended. Beat in eggs one at a time.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter-egg mixture and mix on low speed just until blended. Stir in chopped almonds.
- Divide dough in half. Grease hands to prevent sticking. On prepared baking sheet, shape each half into a flattened log, about 9 inches long, 2 1/2 inches wide, and 1 inch tall.
- Bake in preheated oven until light brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool 5 minutes. Slice logs diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Arrange slices flat on baking sheet. Bake until bottoms are lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Flip cookies and bake until other sides are lightly browned, about 10 minutes more.
- I purchase dried lemon and orange peel from the spice section of the grocery store and use the same amount as the fresh zest specified in the recipe.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 292 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 36 g |
| Cholesterol | 48 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 153 mg |
| Sugars | 18 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I am an experienced baker. I think that the bake times are not correct. I basically wasted the entire batch. After the initial baking, and letting the dough cool, I cut the bread. I did use a serrated knife to decrease the amount of crumbling. The dough just fell apart, and now I have pieces of Mandelbrot. Very disappointing. Fortunately, I was baking these ahead of time for an event. I will go back to a tried and true recipe.
These are absolutely delicious!! My husband and I enjoyed them very, very much! I followed the recipe, except for adding 1 tsp cardamom (as per the other reviewer’s fantastic suggestion) and used 1 full tsp of vanilla. My only issue with the mandelbrot was with the bake time. 25 minutes for the first bake was not nearly long enough. I baked them 30 minutes, and they were still not quite done–I should have probably baked them at least 35-40 mins. Then after slicing them (which was a bit difficult due to them not being fully baked), I ended up baking them about 15 minutes per side to get them nice and golden. Baking time adjustment aside these are sooo incredibly delicious, and a 5 star flavor all the way! Thank you for the recipe!
I’ve made this three times now and differently each time. Also successful each time. The first time I omitted the zest and used 1 cup bread flour and 1 regular. By the time I added everything I found the dough to be so sticky I began adding hand fulls of flour till I was able to roll it into log form without the use of grease. That’s just my preference. As for baking time I left it in a bit longer till golden in color, again preference. The second time, the same flour amounts but added a pinch of cardamom and used Himalayan rock salt, the nuts I did half almonds and half pecans, the rest the same as first time. Third time, used all bread flour, same nut combo and same salt. I also added a cup of chocolate chips in each batch. I like the consistency of the half and half dough the best but wouldn’t go out of my way to buy bread flour for just this. My favorite is the second one with the cardamom.