... or almond icing as my grandmother called it. This is very easy to make and well worth the effort for your home-made Christmas cake. I have substituted almond essence for orange flower water and given quantities to cover the top and sides of a 23cm cake.
Some marzipan recipes combine caster sugar and icing sugar, but my grandmother's instructions use only icing sugar. Whichever you try, you need equal amounts of the ground almonds and the sugar.
300g ground almonds
300g icing sugar (sieved)
½ tsp almond essence
white of 2 eggs
2 tbsp of apricot jam or marmalade, thinned slightly with boiling water.
Combine the ground almonds and sieved icing sugar in a bowl. Add the almond essence and most of the egg white and stir together with a palette knife until you have a stiff paste. Add more egg white if needed.
Dust a board with icing sugar and knead the marzipan until smooth. Don't overdo it or it will become oily. Roll out about half and cut to a circle large enough to cover your cake - I used the base of the cake tin as a template. Brush the top of the cake with the jam and using a rolling pin, lift the marzipan onto the cake.
For the sides, roll out the other half of the marzipan to a length to go around the cake. You may need to do this in two lengths and, again, you can use the cake tin as a template for the required width. Brush the sides of your cake and stick the marzipan to it, pressing down firmly.
Now you're ready to ice your cake.
Any left over marzipan can be kept for up to a month in the fridge. Alternatively, you can use it to make festive decorations or it's very good stuffed into fresh dates and then rolled in caster sugar.
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