15 Delicious Ideas for Marzipan Trimmings

I have just marzipanned our Christmas cake and find I have an unseemly amount of trimmings, This doesn't faze me one little bit because there are so many delicious ways to use the leftovers.  In case you find yourself in a similar situation here are my ideas ...

Cook’s Treat – this is your absolute right so feel free to nibble away to your heart’s content.

Stuffed Dates – just remove the stones from dates (if someone hasn’t done it already) and insert a nugget of marzipan.

Marzipan Balls 

Santa brought these for my real man last year and he loved them so much I think it will become a tradition. Just roll the leftover marzipan into balls and dip in melted chocolate. This also produces some cooks treats during production.

Marzipan Sculptures

If you are of an artistic bent then make marzipan fruits or other “sculptures” and decorate as appropriate. Here's my pathetic effort - must try harder!

Marzipan Sprinkles

Bake little scraps of marzipan in a medium oven, say 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4 ish, until crisp, they won’t take long, then crumble over things such as ice cream or Affogato.

Chewy Marzipan Cookies

To be honest this recipe uses a whole pack of marzipan but you could either halve the recipe or buy a pack specially to make them – because they’re worth it.

2 egg whites
70g-90g icings sugar – sifted
pinch salt
500g marzipan – finely chopped or grated
a little more icing sugar

~   Preheat the oven to 160ºC/325°F/140ºC fan/gas 3.
~   Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof or baking parchment and grease lightly.
~   Whisk the egg whites till pretty damn frothy but not so that you have a meringue situation.
~   Slowly whisk in the sugar, salt and marzipan speed up and whisk to a soft sticky dough which is as smooth as poss.  You may need to add more sugar or, if too firm, perhaps a splash of rum; the texture of bought in marzipan seems to vary quite a lot.
~   Scoop into small balls, roll in icing sugar to coat and place well-spaced (4cm or so apart) on the baking trays, they will spread during cooking.
~   Bake for 20-25 minutes till golden round the edge and cracking on the top.

Marzipan Ice Cream

200g white marzipan
500ml double cream
50ml Amaretto or brandy
200g condensed milk
maybe some inclusions ~ chocolate chips, toasted almonds, dried cherries, for instance

~   Coarsely grate the marzipan and then heat gently with the cream till melted.  Cool to completely cold.
~   Whisk together the marzipanned cream and the liqueur to thick.
~   Fold in the condensed milk plus any inclusions.
~   Freeze.

This recipe comes from my book Luscious Ice Creams without a Machine, which gives over 100 no-churn ice cream recipes including how to make the cherry ice cream in the ice cream sandwich above.

Mince Pies 

... become even richer and deliciouser with a little grated or finely chopped marzipan added to the mincemeat.

Marzipan Enhanced Fruit Tart 

To make a deliciously different fruit tart add a layer of marzipan.

~   Preheat oven to  200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.

~   Roll out the leftover marzipan to size and lay it in the base of the tart case. 

~   Top with your chosen fruit, sliced peaches are lovely as are pears.  

~   Sprinkle with a little sugar and bake for about 20 minutes till the pastry is crisp and brown and the fruit is tender and starting to caramelise.

Alternatively make a …

Frangipane Fruit Tart!

Good Housekeeping have a great Pear-Frangipane Tart recipe here.

Fruit Crumble with Marzipan

This is my basic crumble mix, which is enough to top about 750g fruit to serve 4 people, with added marzipan. Cherries are particularly good topped with this and served with clotted cream.

240g plain flour
160g cold butter or margarine
120g sugar
150g grated marzipan

~   Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4.

~   Rub together the flour and butter till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
~   Stir in the sugar and the marzipan.
~   Sprinkle the mixture over raw or cooked fruit in a shallow ovenproof dish.
~   Bake till the fruit is hot (and cooked if using raw) and the crumble is crisp and golden.
~   Serve hot or cold.

Marzipan Scones – see here for my very flexible scone recipe and after making the dough gently fold in leftover marzipan cut into small dice.

Marzipan Pancakes

Make thick fluffy pancakes, the recipe is here. Whilst the first side is cooking coarsely grate over some marzipan. This way, when flipped, it will have a chance to soften and go golden without overdoing it.

Stollen – I feel I should give a recipe for Stollen here but as I haven’t made it for years ‘n’ years see here for how to make the Perfect Stollen.  

Save the marzipan till Easter and make Simnel Cake!

If I can think of all these ideas for leftover marzipan don't you wonder what I've come up with for the othr 449 potential leftovers in my book Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers?

Look inside here!

Super Flexible Cookie Recipe

I received some great Seed & Bean Chocolate in the post the other day which I initially decided to just eat and eat and eat but then thought it might be a good idea to test some in the cooking department so I made cookies. 

I had three different flavours of chocolate to test.  I didn't want to use too much of it for this experiment so divided the dough into 6 and flavoured them thus …

1.  Dark Chocolate with Chilli & Lime

2.  Milk Chocolate with Cornish Sea Salt & Lime

3.  Lemon Poppy Seed White Chocolate

4.  Granola

5.  Salted Roasted Nuts

6.  Rum & “Raisin”

Look …

Key Cookie Recipe …

120g soft butter

100g caster sugar
50g light brown sugar

1 egg
½ tsp real vanilla extract

240g plain flour

pinch of salt

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

about 180g of chosen mix-ins

~   Cream together the butter and sugars.
~   Beat the egg together with vanilla extract.
~   Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
~   Gradually whisk in the egg (and here’s a handy hint – add a tablespoon of flour at the same time and the mixture is less likely to curdle).
~   Gradually stir in the flour mixture together with chosen additions to make a stiff-ish dough.
~   Now here’s a great thing about this dough … put it in the fridge overnight at least and in theory up to 72 hours. I’m afraid I couldn’t wait that long, I was brave and strong and waited about 36 hours.

~   Preheat the oven to 350°F/180ºC/160ºC fan/gas 4.
~   Divide the dough into walnut sized balls (or bigger for bigger cookies, or sticks for long cookies) and place not too close together on baking sheets.

~   Squash them a bit!
~   Bake till golden and puffed but still a bit squidgy to the touch.

~   Cool on a rack.

  

This  made 22  variously sized soft cookies with crispy edges. I have personally tested one of each and they all worked well …

~   The Dark Chocolate and Chill was fabulous, of course. The Cornish Sea Salt and Lime was good too but then chilli is always the go for me! 

~   Next time I make the Lemon Poppy Seed White Chocolate cookies I think I’ll add a little lemon zest to continue the theme.

 ~  The granola cookie made a fine breakfast drizzled with a little honey. Next time I shall try replacing a tablespoon of sugar with honey when making the dough.

 ~  The salted nuts needed more nuts, or at least not both of them in the same place!, and more salt. I think next time I’ll sprinkle with a little crunchy sea salt before baking.

 ~  The rum and raisin-ish cookie I made with rum soaked dried fruits, (you'll have to scroll down a bit but it's worth it!) was soft, cakey and pleasantly boozy.

Don't forget it - pin it!

Other cookie additions that spring to mind …

~   A knob or two of stem ginger, coarsely chopped – this would be good either instead of or as well as dark chocolate chips.

~   Dried fruits that have not been macerated in alcohol, as opposed to the ones above, dried cranberries and orange zest would be a nice combination.
~   Coarsely chopped toffee or fudge.
~   A spoonful of ground coffee – also good with chocolate chips.
~   Toasted almonds with a drip or two of almond essence.

~   Toasted coconut.
~   Ground cinnamon.
~   Different essences and extracts – peppermint for instance, again with chocky.

Experiment – I did!

I do love a basic recipe, me!  If you have several of these in your brain, or other handy place, then you are really ready to cook – I've written a few books in a series I have called my Genius Recipes Series.