Marzipan

Amazingly, I made marzipan yesterday. Not something I've ever done before. Quick, easy, and much much nicer than the stuff in the packet. It's extraordinary how we have let the supermarkets make us think they are improving our lives, when the smallest effort to cook from scratch proves the opposite.

You need 250g of ground almonds, 250g of icing sugar, and one medium egg. You mix them together in a large bowl. That's it.

My children all say that they don't like marzipan. I gave them a little piece of the freshly-made home-made version, and they all said it tasted of almonds, in the tone of voice that suggested that this was a revelation. And they liked it.

I've got a packet I bought last year and didn't use. This is what it contains: sugar, almonds (25%), glucose syrup, colour lutein. I've got no idea what colour lutein is (except that I know enough gardening latin to work out that it is probably yellow), and I wouldn't want to use it in my kitchen. What a lot of sugar - and the fact that there's so much makes me wonder about the quality of the almonds they have used. The use-by date is June 2007 - I think mine will be eaten up by the middle of next week.