02.04.2017

Cake "Mandarino" - one of the many desserts from famous chef pastry chef from France Emmanuel Hamon (Emmanuel Hamon). The composition of this cake includes Pain de genes biscuit, very fashionable in the confectionery world, dense and moist, tasty and aromatic, made on the basis of marzipan. Delicate caramel creme brulee and airy tangerine mousse for Italian merengue complemented the composition wonderfully, and the crunchy layer of praline, milk chocolate and French waffles created an interesting difference in texture.

15.03.2017

Stollen (Christstollen) is a traditional German Christmas cake. It is made from heavy yeast dough long before the holiday. This is a centuries-old ritual. Stollen was first mentioned in writing in 1329. at Naumburg on the Saale as a Christmas offering to the local bishop. Stollen, with its shape and white color, was supposed to "resemble" the Christ-baby wrapped in swaddling clothes (from Wikipedia).

What is stollen? Butter, heavy yeast dough, with big amount nuts and dried fruits soaked in alcohol. In Europe, marzipan has long been used as a delicacy, it is often used for filling pies, sweets, and is also added to stollen. This step is optional, but highly encouraged. Most often, dark and light raisins, as well as candied fruits are used to prepare stollen, but there are no strict laws here. Each German housewife puts dried fruits according to her taste and desire.

14.04.2018

Several flavors are harmoniously combined in the Isabelle cake. Bright cranberry, well recognizable for its piquant sourness. Coniferous, slightly perceptible, aroma and flavor of rosemary. They were joined by pistachios, almonds and tender cream cheese... From this composition, such a cake appeared. Pistachio sponge cake with marzipan, cranberry cream with rosemary, cranberry confit, mascarpone mousse with a light rosemary aroma, mirror glaze.

Oh, girls, boys, what I baked yesterday! An amazing delicacy, delicate, but at the same time bright and sweet. In Sweden, masarin cake is not uncommon, but it is one thing to be a store-bought option and quite another to be homemade when baking for loved ones. There is one New Year's ingredient in it - marzipan, so with a clear conscience, forget about counting calories, think about the upcoming holidays and enjoy.

Let's start our preparations with cream. It is quite elementary, but requires attention and time to thicken.
We only need two ingredients: white chocolate and cream.

1. Boil 100 ml cream and finely chop the chocolate or pass it through a blender with a special knife.

2. Melt the chocolate in the hot cream and add the remaining 100 ml. Whisk well until foamy. I used a submersible mixer, but you can use a whisk intensively. The cream will be quite liquid, and for some thickening, we send it to the refrigerator, on the coldest shelf. We will continue to work with him at the end of the whole process.

3. Now let's start making the base for the cake. The most important ingredient here is marzipan. It is best to take one that contains at least 50% almonds. This makes it easier to knead the dough, and you end up with fewer unwanted sugars and less flavor substitutes.

Combine warm butter, chopped marzipan, flour, large egg, and sugar in a cup. Hand whipping will be tough because marzipan is not one of the most soluble ingredients on earth. But we need to achieve a good, even and smooth dough without lumps.

4. Line a baking dish (24 cm in diameter if you want a medium-thick crust) with special paper and pour out the dough. Place the dish in the oven for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

Use a toothpick to check the crust for readiness. Once the surface is even golden, remove it from the oven and let cool. After cooling down, put it in the freezer for about half an hour.

5. After being in the freezer, the base for the cakes became more pliable for further action. Take a small glass or any other round shape and cut out the mugs. This will be the base of the cake.

6. It's time to get the slightly thickened cream out of the refrigerator and beat it well in a mixer. The effect is a thick, pliable, delicately sweet, non-settling cream.

8. To heighten the New Year's mood, you can sprinkle with cinnamon and enjoy a cake with tea or coffee.

I hope you get inspired by the recipe and try to treat your loved ones with such cakes!

PS. If you are interested in other almond baking options, you can check out my almond shortbread cookie recipe.

Cooking time: PT01H10M 1 h. 10 min.

Estimated Serving Cost: RUB 50

2017-10-19 6:17

Galina Category: 6 Comments

How to make marzipan and decorate it with marzipan sponge cake and cake - Part I

When I first saw a sponge cake with marzipan, my delight knew no bounds ... First, my daughter made it. Secondly, for the first time I found out what marzipan is. That they can decorate cakes. Of course, I did not pay attention to any shortcomings then. I was amazed at the new way to decorate the proposed dessert.

Good afternoon to all blog readers! Once upon a time, no one in the family could even imagine that I would undertake to lead on a sewing machine. And the fact that Zoya will suddenly begin to do such. We always do something for the first time. Often with gross mistakes, but even after coming to school for the first time, not everything is given to everyone at once ... Gradually, we learn a lot, especially quickly learn what we like most and to which our soul becomes closer.

It is impossible to cover everything. You need to prioritize. In some ways we become aces, but in others we remain undereducated, not fully mastered. And that's why we often make mistakes in that area of ​​knowledge or skills that have remained a "dark forest" for us ... Why I started talking about this topic, I'll tell you sometime later ... And today I remembered that Zoin biscuit cake with marzipan. I really wanted to know what it is and how it is done.

Always to holidays I want to create something special. Usually we try to set the table beautifully, prepare delicious dishes, unusual salad dressing, slicing. I especially want to be on the table beautiful cake... Therefore, today I wanted to propose to practice and make a beautiful cake from biscuit and marzipan.

We traveled for a long time across the Internet and found for you an absolutely amazing sample of the cake. It is shown how to cook it, but it is not very convenient to constantly slow down the video while making a dessert. After thinking quite a bit, we decided to disassemble it into step by step photos, so that it is convenient to view all the stages of work on the cake.

Of course, it took a huge pile of time and the article stretched out so that I had to divide it into parts. And before starting a master class on making a cake in the form of a shoe, I decided to tell everything that I learned about myself ... Before we start making a cake, I think it's worth telling what marzipan is and how is it prepared?

All about marzipan, the most basic

Marzipan is a word of Latin origin. In Latin - Marcipanis - cookies and sweets made from grated almonds with sugar, in German - marzipan, in Italian - marzapane and literally translated “Marta's bread”. It's all kind confectionery.

Now this is the name for the well-known plastic confectionery mass. The mass itself is prepared from crushed almonds and sugar. It is prepared in different densities and the density depends on the manufacturing method. Marzipan mass is used to cover cookie cakes, both as the main decorative finish and as an auxiliary one - the basis for applying glaze or fondant.

You can cook marzipan yourself, at home, or buy it ready-made. Homemade marzipan tastes much richer than store-bought marzipan. And, if you want a dessert with a more pronounced marzipan flavor, you should prepare it yourself, at home. Moreover, it is not at all difficult to make it in any quantity.

Crushed almonds, like any nut, are quite oily, therefore, during cooking, you should not knead the mass too much. Why? Because the oil will simply flow or, more precisely, seep through the marzipan mass and most of it will remain, at least on the table, and, as a maximum, will gradually seep through the glaze. As a result, you will get a not very neat product with greasy spots that have emerged.

When purchasing marzipan in a store, remember that it comes in two colors - white and with a yellowish tinge. Although now you can buy it in different colors, you must agree that if you are picky about the result, then you should dye marzipan yourself. After all, you yourself will do exactly what you need, and you can spend valuable time searching.

Marzipan with a yellow tint can be great for decorating cookies or fruit muffins, or when you don't want clean, vibrant hues. After all, yellow marzipan can be dyed in different colors, but you will hardly be able to achieve a pure bright shade. Yes, and keep in mind that yellow will show through a thin layer of glaze, which will distort its true color as a result. It lends itself poorly to staining.

There are still very important points to remember when working with marzipan:

• For marzipan to be "obedient", which is usually needed when covering cakes, always use only fresh mass. Here we, for today's biscuit cake with marzipan, need just such a pliable and plastic mass.
• Dry it just a little bit before using it for surface glaze applications.
• Marzipan must be strong. This will keep the cake in shape while you are frosting it and will help keep the surface of the frosting free from stains that appear on top of the frosting.
• It is recommended to store the sponge cake with marzipan in a special box in a dry warm or slightly cool place (not hot). If you stored it in a cold place, then when you bring it into a warm room, it will sweat and after the droplets dry, it will leave specks on it.

Cake - how to make marzipan for him

Recipe number 1. Cooking marzipan mass

Ingredients

• 400 grams of peeled almonds
• 200 grams of caster sugar
• 200 grams of sugar
• 1 glass of water

We start to cook marzipan

1. We take sugar - 200 grams and 1 glass of water.
2. Cook the syrup, bringing it to a boil
3. Now boil the syrup for 20-30 seconds
4. You do not need to refrigerate the syrup!
5. We take a coffee grinder and grind almonds into flour. The finer (finer grind) the better!
6. Mix the powdered sugar with the almonds and mix very thoroughly
7. Continuing to stir the mass continuously, pour in the syrup in a thin stream. Remember it must be hot! And mix everything thoroughly
8. The mass should cool slightly and acquire a pasty state.
9. Now knead the slightly cooled paste thoroughly with your hands. As a result, your paste or mass will become homogeneous, smooth and plastic mass and will resemble putty, although who now already remembers or knows about it. It can also be compared to a slightly softened plasticine ...

The finished mass is malleable, just like plasticine. You can sculpt anything from it ... It will depend only on your imagination and the conceived image of a cake or pastries. For them, sculpt animal figures with children. But to New Years holidays you can decorate the cake with Christmas trees, snowmen, sledges ...

Yes, I almost forgot! All this toy variety can be painted with food paints. You don't even want to touch such beauty and at the same time, especially children always want to get a piece of a colorful biscuit cake with marzipan and always with some kind of figurine ...

But if you still have a piece of cake that has not been eaten, store it in the refrigerator, preferably wrapped in cling film or put it in a special plastic container for storage.
Bon Appetit!

Recipe number 2. Homemade marzipan

Calculation of ingredients for the yield of finished marzipan weighing 450 grams

• 225 grams or (2 ¼ cups) crushed almonds
• 125 grams (½ cup) refined white sugar
• 125 grams (¾ cup) powdered sugar, sifted
• 5 ml (1 teaspoon) lemon juice
• A few drops of almond essence
• 1 large egg or 2 medium-sized egg whites

Cooking marzipan according to recipe number 2

1. Place crushed almonds, granulated sugar and powdered sugar in a bowl
2. Mix everything well
3. Make a deepening
4. Pour in lemon juice, essence and egg or proteins in an amount sufficient to form a dense mass
5. Stir with a wooden spoon
6. Roll the marzipan mass into a small ball
7. Sprinkle it lightly with powdered sugar
8. Knead by hand until the mixture is smooth and pliable.
9. Optionally add food coloring
10. If you are not going to use marzipan right away, wrap it in plastic wrap.

Marzipan is used in different ways. One of the ways to use it is to cover cakes or pastries with marzipan, on which it was decided not to use icing. Often, pastry chefs like to use marzipan to decorate especially ceremonial and holiday cakes. After all, the pure white color of marzipan lends itself well to coloring in different bright tones and colors.

The most real marzipan is considered to be a mixture of almonds crushed to a powder consistency with powdered sugar or sugar syrup... But a mixture of powdered sugar and powdered sugar from other nuts and confectionery made from them is also called marzipan.

In Russia, for example, you can often find buns that are called marzipans, but they use the most affordable and widespread nut - peanuts. Marzipan from Luxembourg and Koenigsberg is famous all over the world.

Legends about the origin of marzipan mass

We are already accustomed to the fact that with any dish or dessert there is almost always some kind of origin story associated with it, which usually turns into a legend. And the origin of this dessert was not without legends. As always, in such stories, there are practically no reliable facts. And at once several places, cities, countries dispute the right to be called the Homeland of marzipan. These are Italy, Estonia, Germany and France.

One of the versions of the origin of this confectionery raw material says that marzipan began to be crushed and given to patients as a medicine. The second claims that marzipan was born as a result of raging hunger. During unfavorable weather conditions, the grain harvest was lost. And apart from the almond kernels, there was nothing left. Therefore, they began to grind almonds into flour, mix them with the remaining sugar reserves, or rather an aqueous solution of sugar. Prepare tortillas from this mass. It was they who replaced the bread, which was called marzipan.

World Cuisine and Marzipan

According to the old tradition of the hostess in Germany and Holland, marzipan, sweets, biscuit cakes with marzipan are prepared for Christmas. All this looks very beautiful and festive. Especially when they make candy from this mass. They are glazed with white, black and colored chocolate.

Sweets are made in the form of all kinds of figurines of animals, fruits, plant leaves. Figures are sometimes made without glaze, but from marzipan bread, to which dyes are added.

Skillful craftswomen managed to make liqueurs from marzipan. Marzipan has been used since then to this day for decorating cakes. In this case, the marzipan mass is prepared with a small amount of bitter almonds.

Cake and other recipes for sponge cake with marzipan

Main ingredients of marzipan recipe # 3

• Sweet almonds
• Bitter almonds
• Sugar

Bitter almonds are often replaced with essences, almond liqueur, and bitter almond oil. And often it is generally excluded from the recipe. In this case, the marzipan mass is used for decoration, and it does not have the specific taste of marzipan.

It is important to remember that sugar can be used in powder or syrup form. It can be replaced with another sweetener. In such cases, the selection of the proportions of the main ingredients is always a trade secret and is kept confectionery enterprises in deepest secrecy from competitors.

Ingredients for flavoring the mass

• Cocoa
• Liqueurs
• Orange peel
• Pink water
• Spices and more

Dyes

1. Natural
2. Artificial
3. Eggs - yolk

Basic cooking methods

• Cold on the egg
• Cold without eggs
• Hot

Recipe number 4 - Cold method

In the cold cooking method, use the chopped ingredients while mixing them. And at the same time it is used powdered sugar... In this case, almonds with a high oil content are used. The result is marzipan, which has the consistency of plasticine and, of course, molds well.

Attention: almond kernels are considered substandard if their oil content is very low

When there are no high-quality almonds or for the manufacture of surrogates, kernels are used as the main raw material apricot kernels... And domestic recipes recommend adding an egg to this mass. But...

Attention: be sure to keep in mind that adding raw eggs very dangerous due to salmonella. But that's not all, the use of eggs shortens the shelf life of the marzipan mass.