A delicate treat with taste and aroma of Christmas - sweets with marzipan

Do you remember the ballet "The Nutcracker" by the Russian classic Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky? There is a series of numbers performed by residents of Confiturenburg - tea and coffee, chocolate and caramel, and even marzipan. Sweets with marzipan can be bought today everywhere, although initially they were just a Christmas treat.

And what is marzipan?

Beautiful word mar-chi-pan. Such a thin, elegant, like a ballerina on pointe shoes. It means an amazing treat - ground almonds with sugar syrup. No one knows exactly when and who first came up with this yummy. According to one of the versions, the origin of marzipan is not romantic at all, but even vice versa. In hungry times in European countries, where almond trees grow in abundance, instead of flour, they used nuts to make at least some food. They were rubbed into flour and kneaded dough for flat cakes. Such a prosaic origin of marzipan did not make it something ordinary. Over time, sweetness balls of almonds with sugar and some other tasty and fragrant additives turned into a festive delicacy, which was usually cooked for Christmas.

Are all candy with a nut filling - it's candy with marzipan?

Nut almond mass has a delicate taste and aroma. But since almonds are nuts, you might think that other nuts can also be grinded, added sugar and marzipan. No, no and NO! Marzipan is only an almond delicacy, as it was originally, and it will always be so. All other nuts, turned into small crumbs or flour and sweetened with sugar syrup, marzipan will never be! You can use peach or apricot pits, but then you will get not a marzipan, but a persipan. Everything, other composition at an elegant nutty delicacy simply can not be basically. Producers of sweets go to all sorts of tricks to create products that will be in demand, and as an allegedly marzipan filling offer in their sweets all kinds of nut flour, from hazelnuts to peanuts. But such sweets are not sweets with marzipan.

Little tricks for amazing sweets

Sweets with marzipan, the names of which are different for different manufacturers, differ in flavor and taste. Those who love this dessert know it. Preserving the refined taste of almonds, sweets often have a complex flavor and aroma tinge. This is due to the fact that each of the confectioners who invent marzipan, trying to develop their own unique recipe, adding other natural ingredients such as spices and dyes, changing the proportional ratio of almond flour, sugar, additives. In addition, almond flour makes marzipan plastic, like mastic. From this mass, you can mold any figure in the literal sense of the word. This opportunity, by the way, is actively used in the creation of festive marzipan desserts, although the traditional form of this sweetness is a coke. And if in the mass to add natural or permitted to use food colorings, will become simply fabulously beautiful delicacy of a candy. Marzipan, whose photo is in the article, can be different.

What are sweets with marzipan

Many confectionery factories use almonds and sugar in their sweet products. For example, sweets "Victory of taste" with marzipan are available in the assortment:

• Chocolate truffles with marzipan in bitter chocolate and dark cocoa;
• Truffles "Mocha Coffee" with marzipan in dark chocolate and creamy powder;
• Truffles "Tiramisu" with marzipan in bitter chocolate with mascarpone cheese;
• "Italian truffles" with marzipan and grated walnuts.

Factory "Victory of Taste" has been operating in Moscow for more than 10 years. The assortment of products - sweets and chocolate - is very diverse. Sweets with marzipan from "Victory of Taste" can be purchased not only by weight, but also in gift wrapping. These sweets enjoy constant popularity among sweeties, even despite their rather high cost.

Sweets and music

According to one of the legends, the great Mozart adored marzipan balls. Their pleasant taste and delicate aroma of almonds gave the genius composer pleasure. Although this is only a legend. But it is known reliably that a century after the death of the great Mozart, the Austrian confectioner Paul Furst came up with Mozart's marzipan balls-Mozartkugel. It was in 1890. Marzipan with the addition of pistachios was manually molded into a ball, on which the layer of nougat - a sweet plasticine-like mass was applied. Then such a delicious ball was placed on a thin wooden stick so that it could be completely dipped in chocolate. Mozart balls on sticks were left to solidify the chocolate, and then the stick was removed. The remaining hole in the balloon was filled with chocolate. When the marzipan candy was ready, it was also manually wrapped in the finest sheets of tin and lead alloy, painted in a silvery blue color and with a centrally drawn profile of the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. And to this day, "Mozartkuggel" - one of the favorite delicacies for only the Austrians, but also all those who adore marzipan. These sweets are made with the help of machines, and by hand. Sweets "Mozart" with marzipan are produced in many confectionery factories in Germany and Austria, as the recipe was not patented. But man-made Mozzotkugel can be bought at the Furst confectioner's shop in Salzburg, an Austrian town full of Mozart music and the aroma of marzipan.

Home marzipan

It just seems that marzipan is something very complicated, far off. This sweetness can be prepared at home, and it is available even to a beginner culinary. For the preparation of marzipan mass, sweet and bitter almonds, sugar and water are needed. In a glass of almonds, the nuts should be distributed as follows: for 10-15 amygdala sweet one should take one or two bitter. Unclean the almonds into the boiling water for literally 1-2 minutes. Then nuts cool a little and cleaned, sloschiv skin. Dry the almonds in a pan without frying. Then chop nuts as small as possible with a blender or mortar. Put the mass on the fire, adding 1 tablespoon of sugar and a third of a glass of water. You can drip a couple drops of almond essence to enhance the flavor. Also, if necessary, add colorants. Mass on a small fire, constantly stirring and grinding, boil for 3-4 minutes. Then marzipan spread on a dish, cover with a napkin and cool to room temperature. Now from this fragrant sweet mass you can mold any shape of candy. Store the marzipan wrapped in food film in the refrigerator.