Marzipan - has anyone attempted to make it?

[mousymouse]

have loads of almonds. love marzipan.
found a recipe on the good food website, but that uses egg (not keen on raw egg).
I would love to make little balls and cover with chocolate [big hips emoticon]

Yes, I did a few years ago. It was really nice. I think most recipes do have raw egg in. If you really don't fancy it, why not see if you could get some dried egg?

I make mine with lemon juice it's lovely

ppeatfruit do you just add a little juice at the and or during cooking?
I looked up some german recipes as well and might take the plunge next week.

I don't cook it, to the ground almonds add icing sugar to taste (I hate it too sweet) then using drops of lemon juice mix to a paste.

I used a simple Jane Hornby receipe but reverted back to delia's as she uses some heat to melt some of the sugar. I found this one very good. I add lemon juice & zest too which makes it very yummy.

Good quality eggs from UK are fine.

I do, use the recipe from the Reader's Digest New Cookery Year book, the same one Mum used to use when I was a kid. Yes it has raw egg in, but I've never worried about it, as bacon said.

Here's the recipe:

Almond paste (Marzipan)
Makes: enough to cover a 20 cm (8 in) cake
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: none

100 g (3½ oz) icing sugar
100 g (3½ oz) caster sugar
225 g (8 oz) ground almonds
1 teaspoon lemon juice
A few drops of almond essence
1 egg, size 3, beaten

I just bung it all in the food processor because I'm lazy like that.

you can make your own, it takes time, and can sometimes be a bit hit and miss. If you are Royal Icing your cake (wet icing) you would need to leave the cake at least a week before icing, as you need to give your marzipan time to dry out, as there is a lot of oil when you home make it - which can affect your icing.

Other than taste, I would always buy it ready made, the quality is guaranteed, and as long as your not buying the cheap dyed stuff in the supermarket, there are some really good brands on the market, such as renshaw. Always look for a high nut content, anything around 25% almond content is going to be good.

Hope this helps!

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