What is marzipan and how to cook it?

Surely you had to meet more than once in pastry buns with marzipan. And it's possible that you either heard from someone, or you used the expression "fried marzipans" as a synonym for something that does not exist, like bird's milk and fish furs. But what is marzipan?

It's not a fruit or a vegetable. German connoisseurs can say that this is "March bread". Yes, the word itself translates this way, but what is a marzipan, it is impossible to understand by this phrase. "March bread" is an elastic paste, most of all in consistency and properties resembling clay.

Today it is difficult to say when and where for the first time we learned to make dough from almonds with powdered sugar, but many countries and nations claim the title of "inventor". There is evidence that even in Byzantium already knew what marzipan is. Italians rest on the fact that in the Middle Ages they had a crop failure - almost all plantings were lost. Survived by a strange whim of fate only almonds. Here it began to grind and bake bread from such flour. The Italian championship is contested by the Sicilians, arguing that they started using nut mixtures with sugar. And the French refer to the fact that it is their country that is considered the birthplace of the first confectioners, and it was they who came up with the use of marzipan for a cake. The recipe from the German city of Lübeck still causes fierce controversy in the confectionery environment. Masters cherish professional secrets, and the secret of making a nut mixture is not disclosed to anyone. The version is that for every one hundred sweet nuts one must always put one bitter, although it gives a good result, but still does not bring it closer to the original.

But, anyway, marzipan is widely used throughout the world in the confectionery industry. This delicious treat can be prepared on your own.

Preparing marzipan at home

The recipe is simple, what you are now and see. To prepare this delicacy you will need:

• 0,5 kg of almonds;
• 10 bitter nuts;
• 200 g of sugar or powdered sugar;
• 1 tbsp. Spoon of water.

Almond should be scalded with boiling water, remove the shell from it, and then slightly dried in a slightly warm oven. In order for it not to burn out, you can leave the stove open - it will be easier to control the process.

In the coffee grinder, grind the nucleoli into flour, add the powdered sugar (if there is no powder available, then bake sugar on the same coffee grinder) and mix thoroughly, as in the preparation of a conventional test. During the mixing process, you should periodically add water in small doses. The easiest way to do this is using an atomizer. The dough fastening agent will be almond oil.

The finished mass is wrapped in polyethylene or foil and sent to the refrigerator for the whole night. Keep in the cold, marzipan can take a long time, so that by preparing it once for future, you will then be able to apply it at any time. If desired, you can color the mass with any food coloring and dazzle it with a variety of delicious figurines.

Now you know what marzipan is and how it is cooked. Be sure that your loved ones will appreciate your confectionery masterpieces, decorated with original and delicious details.