[Sca-cooks] Playing with Marzipan....

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, Melody Mahanna wrote:

> Hey All,
> 	The marzipan posts of late started the gears and cogs in my imagination
> ticking so I got a small bit of marzipan to play with.  Now I have heard of
> wondrous creations made out of this stuff and mine still looks like uncooked
> sugar cookie dough and is about as agreeable to my sculpting efforts.  Do
> you leave it out once sculpted to harden up or do you bake it?  Any
> suggestions as to neato things I can try here?  *looks at the poor lump of
> neglected marzipan*
> ~Melody

There are different recipes for marzipan. The recipe that my late
grandfather used, and that it sounds like Olwen uses, is fairly stiff, not
really sticky, and sculpts a lot like well-handled Play-doh. Commercial
marzipan like the kind you buy in the tube is fairly soft (although still
tasty), and usually used inside baked goods, so the texture doesn't matter
nearly so much.

If you leave marzipan out for long, it will harden and become not fun to
eat. If you want to be able to eat it after it's been formed, you have to
store it airtight or seal it in something (like chocolate).

You can bake it--shape it into little breads, glaze it with beaten egg
white, and bake it until it is brown on top. Looks like little
buns. Changes the taste, too.

If you freeze it, wrap it very well and don't store it for too long or it
will dry out.

Without baking it, the easiest shape I know of is the potato (ok, yeah,
it's not really period). Make balls, make little dents for eyes with the
wide end of a flat toothpick, and roll in cocoa powder. You can also tint
it with food colorings--just knead it in.

You may find that if you knead in some icing sugar (powdered or
confectioner's sugar to those who haven't been reading English cake
decorating books lately) it will stiffen up the paste enough for good
sculpting. It may make it extremely sweet--use about a teaspoon at a time
until it's stiff as you want.

Olwen, do you use fondant in your marzipan, and if so, what proportions?

Margaret, who is missing the annual marzipan-making weekend with Grandpa
rather acutely this year