# How to make marzipan?



## headless chicken (Apr 28, 2003)

Mother bought a bag of almonds at a factory outlet. I'm jotting down some almond creations and ideas but many will need marzipan. I don't want to buy any and I do believe in making everything from scratch when possible. Anyone have a good working recipe for marzipan that I can recreate at home?

I know its very finely ground almonds with a bit of powdered sugar, almond extract, and eggs. I need a ratio. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## jock (Dec 4, 2001)

I have a recipe at home. Give me a day and I'll look it up for you.

So what do you plan to do with it? My favorite thing is to wrap it around a fruit cake before applying the icing - or drape it over a Swedish Princess cake.

Jock


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## headless chicken (Apr 28, 2003)

I had a number of ideas
Petit Fors
Almond cake with an almond butter cream, vanilla cake, and ganache icing.
Almond twisted coffee cake
Almond pastry cream filled eclairs

Problem is, I would need the almonds to be made into almond butter and/or marzipan. I havn't settle with a decision yet, family is a bit hard to impress and I don't want to be making the same items over and over again.


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## headless chicken (Apr 28, 2003)

Chocolate & Almond cake

Adlmond butter cream + marzipan layers
Chocolate spounge + Ganache icing
Maybe a layer of japonaise (almond lady fingers)

Will try to make for this weekend when I head over to Detriot for friend's granduation party.


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## jock (Dec 4, 2001)

You know what? I did look that recipe up but then i had to go out and I forgot to reply. Sorry  And, of course I am at work again so it will be tomorrow.

Jock


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## jock (Dec 4, 2001)

I used to have this recipe for marzipan that called for rataffia essence. Some friends here on CT deduced that rataffia essence was in fact a bitter almond essence. Kind of a pointless storey actually because I can't find that recipe any more.  

Anyway, I looked around and found that most recipes for marzipan call for adding egg white and sugar to store bought almond paste. But that kind of defeats the purpose in your case. I did find a couple of recipes starting with raw nuts though; one that is very basic and one that is more involved. First the basic one:

Equal amounts of ground nuts and sugar mixed with enough egg white to make a paste. A few drops of rose water and a little almond essence are opional additions.

The more complete recipe is from the 1975 edition of Joy of Cooking. It starts with making the almond paste:

Pass 1 pound of blanced nuts through a meat grinder at least 4 times using the fine blade. (It is not only OK, but desirable for the nuts to be oily.)
Cook 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water to 240 degrees. Off the heat add the ground nuts, 6 to 8 TBS OJ and a few drops of rose water (optional.) Mix to combine and let it cool. Knead it till smooth.

For the marzipan:

For each cup of almond paste - whisk one egg white and mix in the cup of almond paste and 1 1/2 cups sugar. 

Good luck

Jock


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## headless chicken (Apr 28, 2003)

WOW thx, definatly useful.


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## coen valk (Jan 16, 2011)

look here is what you do:

you can mash your almonds and buy some phylo dough. here is an ingredient list:

1 cup almonds

1 cup water

8 tbs. sugar

3 tbs. honey

20-30 sheets of phylo dough

TONS OF BUTTER!!!!

(you can never have to much butter)

What you do:

first, get your almonds in a spin in your favorite blender, and then mix with about 5 tbs. of BUTTER!!!! until it looks like a dough. this is not REAL marzipan, but real marzipan is too sweet for this.

when mixed, your half way there. Now, you cut your dough to the size of your pan (deep dish oven safe if you please), first, about seven layers of dough on each other (IMPORTANT!: BUTTER MUST BE IN EVERY LEVEL OF DOUGH!!! AND A LOT OF BUTTER!!! after seven layers, put in your almond mixture and then, put in the rest of the dough (again with BUTTER) until all your dough is gone or until you HAVE NO ROOM IN YOUR PAN!!!! First, pre-cut your creation. Then, heat your oven to 350F and put in your pan for 15-20 minutes until your dough is lightly browned. Now, you have to make a syrup. you get your sugar and honey and water in a pan and put it on medium heat. mix constantly until a bit thicker. then, put on your creation. serve quickly after.

YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS CALLED? BAKLAVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's true!


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