NOSH
DINING AROUND THE D

O

n my list of favorite sweets, man-
del bread has never rated highly. 
I typically find the bite-sized, 
crunchy bar cookies to be dry and kind of 
dull to eat, if you know what I mean. 
Then Facebook friend Ron Elkus, 
retired owner of the Shirt 
Box clothing store, posted a 
rave review for his friend’s 
home-baked Goldie’s 
Mandel Bread. As he put 
it: “
Amazing!! Guarantee 
you will love them — if 
not, I will eat them for you. 
Support a small business!”
Well, I like cookies. I was 
willing to be persuaded. So, I went to visit 
home baker Lisa (Orechkin) Berkey, 56, 
for an interview and a taste of her specialty 
mandel bread. She told me that her from-
scratch recipe, highlighted by aromatic cin-
namon and chocolate chips, started with 
her writing down what she observed while 
watching an older family friend make 
mandel bread from memory. 
Greeting me at the door in her Goldie’s 
apron, Berkey escorted me to her spacious 
kitchen. That’s where the magic happens. 
I was amazed by how quickly (in about 40 
minutes) she whipped up a batch of her 
twice-baked cookies. 
I watched Berkey place a portion of 
dough into the bowl of her powerful 
Kitchen-Aid electric mixer. She used its 
paddle attachment to whip up the mandel 
bread batter. The next step was shaping 
the batter into two long logs on a parch-
ment-lined cookie sheet. She popped the 
tray into her preheated oven for the first 
bake required for making mandel bread. 
That gave us time to get better acquainted. 
 
A LONGTIME BAKER 
Berkey has long enjoyed a reputation as 
an expert baker among her family and 

friends. The Jewish-style baked goods she 
turns out include rugalach (cookies), babka 
(cake) and challah (bread). She always liked 
bringing her mandel bread on visits to her 
then Florida-based parents and other rel-
atives. Although she still works part-time, 
by 2022 Berkey felt sufficiently encouraged 
and inspired to start baking mandel bread 
as a home-based business. That’s allowed 
under the state Cottage Food Law.
She decided to call her product Goldie’s 
Mandel Bread. “My middle name is 
Golda,
” Berkey said, “but ‘Goldie’s’ sounds 
better. And it’s definitely better than ‘Lisa’s 
Mandel Bread.
’”
Her immediate family got involved with 
the venture. When it comes to mandel 
bread, she said, her husband, Paul Berkey, 
“knows how to smell it and how to taste 
it.
” He helps Lisa with the business end of 
Goldie’s and packaging large orders. Their 
grown children, Sarah Lencer and Jack 
Berkey, “both know how to bake; they’ve 
helped me since they were kids,
” Lisa said. 
With Jack mostly busy at college, Sarah 
steps up to handle her mother’s larger 
orders and also has set up and monitors 
Goldie’s social media.
The mandel bread was out of the oven. 
Berkey invited me to eat the end pieces 
she cut off the logs. They were always the 
favorite thing of her father, Sam Orechkin. 
He joined Lisa and her family shortly after 
his wife and her mother, Mickie Orechkin, 
91, passed away in Florida in March 2017. 
Sam died in November 2019 at age 96. 
After cutting the logs into 36 pieces 
(minus my four ends), Berkey returned the 
mandel bread to the oven for its second 
bake. We talked some more.

HELPING THE COMMUNITY 
“Baking is therapeutic” for Berkey, but 
her main career is serving as executive 
director of the Greater West Bloomfield 

You’ll want to get a box of these moist, rich 
cookies for yourself. 

Goldie’s 
Mandel Bread

Esther 
Allweiss 
Ingber 
Contributing 
Writer

WRITERS NAME CONTRIBUTING WRITER

46 | MAY 11 • 2023 

Lisa Berkey

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER
ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER

