Marzipan

Mix Ingredients for marzipan together. Marzipan should resmeble a dough - you should be able to mold it a bit.

*Using a food processor to grind the almonds is recommended. Also, the finer the grind, the more smooth the marzipan. Grinding the almonds to the size of sand granules works well. Be sure to not grind them to almond flour.

Original Recipe Sources

Source [ Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin , V. Armstrong (trans.)]: 22 If you would make good marzipan. First take a half pound of almonds and soak them overnight in cold well water, take them out in the morning. Next pound them well until they become oily, pour a little rose water on them and pound them further. When they become oily again, then pour a little more rose water thereon. Do this until they no longer become oily. And pound the almonds as small as possible. After that take a half pound of sugar, pound not quite all of it in, leaving a little left over. Next, when the almonds and sugar are pounded well together, put them in a bowl, take the lid from a small box, loosen the rim completely, so that it can be detached and put back on again, however leave the lid and the rim together. Take wafers and make them about as wide as a pastry shell, very round. Spread the almond paste described above with the fingers onto the wafers, moistening the fingers with rose water and dipping the almond paste into the sugar, which you have kept in reserve. After that, when you have spread it out evenly with your hands, take the sugar that you have reserved and sprinkle it through a sieve evenly over the marzipan. And take a small brush and dip it in rose water and sprinkle the marzipan overall, so that the sugar is dissolved. Then let it bake. Check it often, so that it is not burnt. It should be entirely white. The amount of a half pound is necessary, so that the oil remains.

Source [ Ouverture de Cuisine , D. Myers (trans.)]: To make Marzipan. Take almonds appointed as above, & flatten the paste as for making a tart, then form the marzipan as fancy as you want, then take sifted sugar & mix with rose water, & beat it together that it is like a thick batter, cast there a little on the marzipan, & flatten with a well held knife until the marzipan is all covered, then put it into the oven on paper: when you see that it boils thereon & that it does like ice, tear apart from the oven, when it doesn't boil, & sprinkle on nutmeg: if you want it golden, make it so.

Source [ Libre del Coch , R. Carroll-Mann (trans.)]: 135. Marzipans. Take almonds which are select, and wholesome, and well-peeled in boiling water. And grind them very well, moistening the pestle of the mortar in rosewater so that they don't become oily. And when they are well-ground, cast in as much syrupy sugar as there will be almonds; and let it be well-ground, and strained through a silk sieve; and make good paste incorporating the sugar little by little, and not with large amounts, so that you don't make the paste viscous, and spread them out very well. The way to cook and glaze them: Take fine sugar which is very well-ground, and strain it through a sieve of silk; and for a syrup put it in this way, and blend it with rosewater which is reasonably thick. It is necessary that the oven is not very intense, but temperate; and take the sheet on which you will cook the marzipans, and heat it in the oven; and when it is hot, cast flour on it, under the marzipans, so that they don't stick; and put them in the oven until you see that you cannot bear to touch them with the back of your hand; and if the outside is not cooked, be sure to return it to the edge of the sheet with the outside on the inside. And then take them out and with a little spoon cast glaze upon them, and with some feathers spread it out all over. And then return them gently to the oven until the glaze hardens, as you think [right] according to the practice you have seen.