I love marzipan. I recently discovered that it is very easy to make and way better than industrial marzipan (less sugar, more almond flavour).

People like to make little gingerbread shapes and animals. Why not make them out of marzipan?

Step 1: Ingredients

Here are the basic ingredients for marzipan :

- 200g sugar (regular caster sugar is fine)

- 200g almond flour (=ground almonds)

- 60g water (around six table-spoonfulls)

If you want to colour and sculpt the marzipan, it is better to use white almond flour (it means they have removed the skin before grinding the almonds) and to make sure it is well ground. You will need colours too, either dry (saffron, green matcha tea, cocoa...) or liquid food colouring. Using liquid colouring means it will change the consitency of your marzipan and it will stick to your fingers and your table. As you would use flour to roll pastry, you will use icing sugar (powdered sugar) for marzipan.

Step 2: Making the Marzipan

Put the sugar and water in a pan. Heat until it boils (it should take around 5 minutes). Then lower the heat to a minimum and add the ground almonds. Keep stirring until the marzipan starts to unstick from the sides of the pan. Put the marzipan in a bowl or a box and let it cool off.

You can keep it up to two weeks if you store it in a plastic box in the fridge.

Step 3: Sculpting and Colouring

If you use dry colourings (saffron, green matcha tea, cocoa...) you can simply add it to the marzipan and mix well.

If you use liquid colourings, pour some icing sugar on the table. Pour a few drops of colouring on the marzipan and start mixing with your fingers. It will get sticky, that is what the icing sugar is for. Keep experimenting with colours until you are satisfied.

I had three colours : yellow, blue and red. I wanted purple so I put some blue and red colourings in my marzipan, which meant twice as much liquid, so twice as much icing sugar needed to keep it unsticky : my purple marzipan was very sweeter than my red or blue marzipan.

Sculpting marzipan is just like using play dough. Be creative. Use chopsticks for little details.

I made marzipan sushis and a marzipan My Little Poney for friends. They were thrilled!