Marzipan is a very tasty treat. It is crushed candied almonds. That is, it is a soft and very elastic mixture consisting of powdered sugar and powdered sweet almonds. Although there is an opinion: in order to fully feel all the shades of the taste of marzipan, for every 50 nucleoli of sweet almonds, you need to put 1 bitter nucleolus. Opinions vary. There is another thing: it is not important to use almonds, you can take other nuts for cooking. Therefore, it is quite possible to cook marzipan at home.
Mention of marzipan is found in many old European tales. For example, in the fairy tale The Nutcracker, the Mouse King, in exchange for marzipan, agreed not to touch the Nutcracker. This delicacy was able to work miracles in a dream and in reality in a fairy tale about Ole-Lukoye. There is information that Marzipan was very fond of Louis 14 - the French king, Thomas Mann - a German writer, Louise Charlotte - a Prussian princess.
The preparation of marzipan at home (and not only), or rather its description, must necessarily contain the following very important point - in marzipan sugar should be from one third to two fifths. Only this ratio allows you to make the mixture flexible without any special chemical additives. Below are two different recipes for making marzipan at home.
The recipe for marzipan number 1
Necessary ingredients: 500 grams of ground almonds, 3 tablespoons of rose water, 10 grams of almond oil, 500 grams of powdered sugar. From this list, the rarest products are ground almonds and rose water. You can simply buy almonds in a store, peel them and grind them on a coffee grinder. And pink water is done like this: rose petals are poured with boiling water and infused. Then taken out. Rose petals are sold in large supermarkets in tea departments. All products are based on the weight of the finished product, equal to 1 kilogram. Those. in the end you get a kilogram of marzipan, want less, divide accordingly. Marzipan at home will turn out tasty only if you strictly observe the proportions.
In a small saucepan, mix 200 grams of 500 icing sugar with pink water and ground almonds, and then cook over medium heat, gently stirring all the time, until the resulting mass begins to stick to the walls. Then put it on a table sprinkled with flour and add almond oil and those remaining 300 grams of powdered sugar. Thus, a viscous almond dough should be obtained. If the mass comes out too dense, you can add a few more drops of pink water.
The recipe for marzipan number 2
At home, marzipan can be made according to this recipe: a glass of almond, 2 - 3 drops of almond essence, a glass of sugar, a third of a glass of water.
Peel the almonds (for this, dip in boiling water and cook for several minutes, so that the shell is more easily removed). Gently dry the wet kernels in a skillet (do not let them burn). Then grind them in a blender to a condition of slightly damp gruel. Pour sugar over water and put on low heat to make syrup. At the same time, it is important that the syrup does not turn into caramel, and its density must be such that a hard drop can be made from it with your fingers. Then pour the almonds into the thickened syrup and wait four minutes. The mixture will quickly thicken, and then you will need to drip almond essence. Now this thickened mass can be laid out on the table and given almost any shape: to mold candy, strudel or something else. And if the mass is too friable, then you just need to add a little water. Keep marzipan in a cling film.
Here are two examples of what marzipan can be made at home. And his taste will be no worse than in a store.