Making Marzipan

A simple uncooked marzipan is a very easy thing provided you have a coffee grinder handy to pulverize the nuts. You’ll need to do the grinding in small batches, obviously. I think it took me four batches, but all of maybe five minutes. After you’ve cleaned out your grinder, add the nuts…

…and grind continuously for about fifteen seconds. Try not to reduce them to a paste, which is very easy to do since the nuts have so much oil in them.

Once that’s done, pass them through a fine sieve, pressing the remnants through with your knuckles or a spoon, whichever you like. Re-grind and re-sieve anything that’s too big to go through.

Now then, whisk your egg white and salt together…

…add the vanilla and keep whisking until everything’s incorporated.

Then just dump in the almonds.

Stir it all together until you get a wet paste…

….then add the powdered sugar.

You’ll need to knead it by hand as it gets stiffer…

…but in about three minutes you’ll have a fairly firm paste.

Add more powdered sugar to get to the consistency you want. Add food coloring to your heart’s content. The marzipan can be eaten as-is or molded into virtually any shape. Refrigerate it for up to two months.