Sunday 24 April 2011

Making marzipan

My New Years resolution for 2011 was to do something new each month.  This month, I was rapidly approaching the end of April and hadn't met my challenge.  However, Easter Sunday presented the perfect opportunity.  I was going to make a Simnel cake, and for that, I was also going to make my own marzipan.  Now I love marzipan. Deeply.  It is delicious and I could happily eat tonnes of the golden chewy wonder food.  Those who claim not to like it are simpletons and fools.

The brilliant thing is that is really easy to make.  You just need a handy sugar thermometer and the ability to stir. Easy peasy.  Whats not so easy is the patience to wait for it to cool before sampling the almondy goodness.  You boil water with sugar, then when it has reached the soft ball stage, take it off the heat and add ground almonds, almond essence and egg white.  The results were very tasty and I will be posting soon about the marzipans destination, part 2 of Aprils challenge.

2 comments:

  1. hmm...I never thought about making my own marzipan. I haven't dabbled much with candy making. One question...do you rest the candy thermometer on the bottom of the pan or try to keep it off of the bottom. I only ask because I would think the bottom would be a lot hotter than higher up?? I was never sure what to do.

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  2. Um, as I seem to remember my thermometer has a little bar at the bottom, then the bulb of the actual thermometer is held slightly higher up and doesn't make contact with the base of the pan (which has to have a thick bottom by the way- but that happens to the best of us) Mostly, I was too preoccupied with the neat little clip that my thermometer has that you use to clip it to the side of your pan. It slides up and down the thermometer and I was most impressed.

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