Marzipan is very versatile, tasty and easy to make at home. Marzipan can be used in cakes like German Christmas Stollen, or use it to make edible figurines. Marzipan can easily be tinted with food colouring, and used to cover a cake. For little chocolate confections, roll it out, cut out with cookie cutters and dip it in chocolate like I did in this post for yummy little chocolate confections.
All you need is almonds, icing sugar, egg white and your choice of flavouring, be it almond extract, vanilla extract or lemon juice. And also a food processor comes in handy for grinding the nuts to a fine consistency. Another alternative for grinding the nuts are coffee grinders, I used my coffee bean grinder often for grinding nuts until I got my food processor.
If you don’t have a way of grinding the nuts, almonds can be purchased already ground from a bulk food store. This recipe is closer to being an Almond Paste than actually Marzipan. Depending on which country you live in there are variations between Almond Paste and Marzipan. Marzipan, usually has more sugar and less nuts. I love the way this recipe tastes, especially when I use it in my Christmas Stollen.
note!! I use an egg white instead of the water only if marzipan will be baked in a Stollen or nut bread afterwards because of the possibility of salmonella and egg allergies. This version with water is just as good. Just omit the egg in the directions, and replace with water a few drops at a time.
TIP! If you can find sliced almonds you won’t have to peel them. Just a light toasting required.
Recipe should be doubled if covering a small cake.
Ingredients:
1 cup blanched almonds (or ¾ cup already ground almonds)
1 cup icing sugar
½ teaspoon almond extract
a few drops of water or rose water as needed
To blanch almonds, boil whole almonds 1 minute to soften skin. Pinch skin off of the blanched almonds, then in a food processor; grind almonds until finely ground with no lumps. Don’t over process the almonds or they may turn into almond butter. Add the icing sugar, egg white and almond extract. Mix until a ball starts to form. If marzipan is too wet, add more icing sugar until a ball can be formed.
Remove marzipan from food processor; form into a ball or log and Voila! You have ready to use marzipan.
Cover with plastic wrap and keep refrigerated for up to a week until ready to use, or freeze.
