A Simple Marzipan Recipe

I am starting with the lowest measures here. The marzipan this would yield would be enough for a single serve. You can double or triple up the ingredients depending on whether you have to feed a family of four or the entire village.

I suggest making enough to feed a village as it is a lengthy preparation process and not one you would want to repeat in a hurry.

What you need:

Cashew nuts – 150 gms

Sugar – 200 gms (if you prefer nutty flavours dominating, 150 gms should work fine)

Egg – 1 white

Flavour – You can fiddle here with: Rose water – 1/2 a shot glass / Orange essence – a drop or two / anything you please – if they aren’t old socks or your favourite teddy, you can juggle around with the quantity.

Food colours – Go mad!

What you need to do:

Grind cashews to a fine powder in a blender/mixer. Do NOT use the grinder as you will get a chunky consistency. If you intend to fantasize you are having cashew nut butter, then by all means go ahead but sublime marzipan creations need a smooth ball of dough.

Add the ground powder (it will be oily, but that’s OK as ground cashews are oily buggers. Hyuk!) to a heavy bottom pan or any sturdy utensil from the local kitchen-ware shop and mix in some of the sugar. Leave aside 1/3rd of the sugar for use during kneading.

Stiffly beat the egg white and add it to this mix. Now add in whatever flavour you have decided upon and immediately place the icky looking mixture on a veeeeeerrrrrry low flame.

Vishesh Tippani –> Oil your stirring hand with hair oil or Vaseline and start stirring the mixture slowly. Oiling prevents your hand from getting sore and turning an ugly shade of red after nearly an hour of continuous stirring.

Once the dough seems smooth and starts leaving the sides of the utensil, you know you have achieved the consistency required to create exquisite marzipan creations.

Turn off the flame and empty the utensil onto a flat surface and immediately begin spreading the dough. This is important as the dough needs to be aired and cooled enough for you to dig your hand in and begin the painful kneading process. Add the sugar you had kept aside while kneading the dough. The finer your sugar, the less crunchy your marzipan.

The dough will be very oily at this stage, making kneading a revelation in how many swear words you actually know. Just keep a level mind and think of Santas in shorts or similar shocking things and keep kneading till you are satisfied that your big ball of dough is smooth enough and warm enough to divide into smaller balls.

Depending on what you intend to create, add food colour to these balls. Make sure you keep aside a sizeable ball free of colour if you run short of any coloured marzipan. This way you have something on which you can fall back.

So there you go, you now have yummalicious marzipan made the East Indian way to play around. Now send me pictures of what you make or better, feed me.