JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day


Sunday, December 17, 2006

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.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is a slippery slope Joanna. The marzipan making will lead on to chocolate making, then to truffles....
Or at least it would in our house!
CH
x

Hannah said...

Thanks for the link to your marzipan recipe Joanna - I will definitely give it a go. I have long had an idea for making pistachio marzipan which would be a lovely green colour....just waiting for some spare time to have a play! Happy Easter to you allxxx

Joanna said...

Fabulous idea, Hannah, I think I'll do that myself ....

Happy Easter
Joanna

Anonymous said...

How long can you store the marzipan once it's made? And I assume it would be kept in the refrigerator??

Thanks and cheers,

*Heather*

Joanna said...

Heather I'm not totally sure. What I know is that it gets eaten very quickly, because it's so good. It needs to go in the fridge. It hasn't got any preservatives in, and it's got fresh eggs and also nuts which have oil which can go rancid (which just means it tastes funny). So I would say 2 weeks tops. But I would also use my eyes and my sense of smell to judge. There's no need to make it in advance, because it takes so little time ...

DO give it a try, I'll never go back to the bought stuff

Joanna