#27 Mandelbrot (Chocolate Almond Slices) 1967

My "skewed distribution" cookies.

If you like playing with clay, you'll love making these cookies. Form a long rope of the chocolate part and wrap it in the vanilla part. Bake the two long cookie bars once, then slice (like biscotti), and bake cookies flat for another 5 minutes. Sounds doable, right?

The trick is to get each half of the dough the same consistency. The recipe doesn't accomplish that goal; the center is too stiff and the vanilla covering too flabby. I hate flabby.

Chocolate center is too dry to hold together.

Vanilla layer spreads and spreads.

The problem is the timing of the dry ingredients. The recipe wants you to incorporate a full 1/4 cup of cocoa (dry ingredient) plus a half cup of almonds (another dry ingredient) to the chocolate half, at the very end of the mixing. The result? A stiff chocolate dough that barely holds together.

Meanwhile, the vanilla layer gets no compensating addition of flour to firm it up. So, the vanilla outer layer oozes around the chocolate core. Poor planning.

Recipe alteration: After adding the 3 cups of flour, divide the dough in half. Make additions to the chocolate half. Then, add the "extra" 1/3 cup flour only to the vanilla half.

To be fair, the Notes suggest using a well-floured board to roll out the covering layer. IMHO, the board cannot be floured enough. Best to incorporate the extra flour into that layer before rolling. Flour the rolling surface, as well.

For the second roll I formed, I made a point of kneading more flour into the vanilla layer--beyond just using a well-floured surface--for a better result. The first roll split apart (see bottom photo), whereas the second held together just right.

Outer layer is too pliable and relaxes around the center.
If only this didn't describe my waist, too.

The chocolate-almond layer makes a nice color contrast with the vanilla covering, not to mention the fun look of these cookies on a plate. They are a traditional Jewish cookie and a festive addition to Jewish holidays, as they contain no butter or milk. That means that under kosher dietary laws they can be eaten with meals that contain meat or those that contain dairy.*

Remember my research training? I couldn't help likening the shape of these cookies to a bell curve. Only my cookies were not really symmetrical, owing to the loose outer skin. (I hate loose outer skin, too.)

Loose outer layer pulled apart during baking.

When the "curve" is not symmetrical, you have what is known as a skewed distribution. I call these my Skewed-Distribution Cookies. OK, so not everyone can appreciate statistics-geek humor. My research group thought it was hilarious.

The recipe is here and here.

*http://newsok.com/happy-merry-mandelbrot/article/3516943