Marzipan

Today's guest post comes from my friend Jess, you may remember her from our bake-off here, or our baking collaboration here. I know it's not technically 'baking' but Marizpan on a Monday does have a nice ring to it...

Hello! Greetings from Brooklyn, New York. We are having some rather miserable weather right now. It not only makes me a bit nostalgic for England but also makes me crave decadent sweets (or 'candy') to nibble on. So, on prompting from my Taste Tester who rather pointedly put a bag of ground almonds in the cart at Trader Joe's, I made some marzipan.

Marzipan is a favorite of mine and most people are familiar with it from Christmas Cake or the way it lovingly hugs a Battenberg cake. I adore this stuff and technically it only has healthy fats, from eggs and almonds, so if you ignore all the sugar...it's positively good for you!  

The start is quite complicated. Set a pan of water simmering on the stove making sure a glass bowl fits over it, much like you would do for melting stuff. Measure out 6oz of icing sugar and 6oz of caster sugar and combine in the bowl. Add in 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk. Save the egg white for a future recipe! No wasting food please! Now here is the boring bit so make sure you have music playing or someone to talk to...you need to whisk this concoction over the simmering pan of water for 12 minutes.

After 12 thrilling minutes, remove the bowl from the pan and place in a tray of cold water to help it cool down. Squeeze in about 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of almond extract. Then, empty in 12oz of ground almonds and stir.

Start off with a wooden spoon but it will soon reach the hands only stage. I love this bit. Make sure the surface tops are clean and dusted with icing sugar. Use more icing sugar if things get sticky. Once you have a lump of marzipan (and have tasted it!), start rolling them into balls.

Then, either enjoy as is or dip them in dark chocolate. We opted for plain this time but here is a photo from when I did the dipping on previous occasions.

Store them in the fridge if they have chocolate in or in a container otherwise. I guess they plain ones could go in the fridge but I've never tried that so I can't say if it's better or not! These are very moreish and didn't seem to last long around here. The next day when I returned from work, all but 4 had gone.


Thanks Jess, these look amazing, but I can't believe you didn't make me any! Jess has her own baking blog, Baking in Brooklyn and a blog full of shoes, Everything Shoe.