[Sca-cooks] Marzipan creations, & experiments

[Jennifer Whitbeck]

Hi, all!  I changed the thread title marginally, so
I'm only quasi-hijacking the marzipan onion thread...

I asked opinions a while back about using one of those
old-style "meat" grinders to grind almonds for
marzipan, since I had recently acquired one with a
"nut butters" attachment. (I know it's far easier to
buy the stuff, but I like this sort of experimenting.)
Well, I finally got off my duff, blanched some almonds
and tried it out. Though somewhat more messy, it
definitely yielded smoother results than the food
processor. (Quote from fiance; "Hey, that's so much
smoother than the other stuff you've made!") ;->

Now, I've started playing with molds too...  I found
one interesting product I played with this week;
Crayola's Model Magic. I read it was non-toxic and
non-sticking, so I thought I'd see how it stood up to
making molds for marzipan. Preliminary results might
be promising, so that prompted me to write the list
about it.

It didn't turn out how I expected. I cast two things:
an acorn and a plastic chess piece. Apart from being
non-toxic, I picked it because it said it was an
air-drying modelling clay. It was weird stuff; felt
like I was trying to mold marshmallows! It seems that
it does "dry", but it doesn't really harden. Now that
the test molds are dry, they're like a solid foam and
retain they're shape (acorn, chess piece) after
squeezing. I found when I tried molding marzipan into
them, the mold was pliable enough to flex and help pop
the marzipan out.

I think I'd rather try some stiffer, real clay, before
deciding what I preferred, but I thought this might be
useful info if anyone was looking for a more flexible
mold material that was non-toxic.




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