Marzipan
Recipe from the book "The First Ukrainian Everyday Cookbook" (1-ша українська загально-практична кухня), 1929, by Olha Franko.
Marzipan is a sweet confection made from almond flour and sugar, whose recipe was brought from Asia by Italian merchants in 1340.
The name likely derives from the word maza — the mortar in which almonds were ground with sugar — and pan, meaning bread.
The first detailed written recipe was found in the German city of Lübeck. Marzipan was sold there in pharmacies as a remedy for headaches and heart ailments. Lübeck marzipan, along with that of Spain, is considered among the finest in the world.
The earliest marzipans were made from crushed almonds, sugar, and flavoured water — rose water or orange water, for instance. Later, egg white was added to the mixture to prevent the nuts from releasing their oil; it is precisely this recipe that is the forerunner of French macarons.
Marzipan found its way to Lviv as well. In 1903, it was made and sold at the confectionery of Ludwig Zelewski. His marzipan figurines were so delicious that they were exported from Lviv to Vienna, Warsaw, and Paris.
Ingredients
- 200 g ground almonds or almond flour*
- 100 g sugar
- 2–3 tablespoons rose water
Preparation
- Grind the almonds and mix them with the sugar.
- Knead into a dough, adding the rose water gradually (the almond mass should hold together and not be too sticky).
- With wet hands, shape the mixture into small pastries.
- Bake at 180° for 18–20 minutes (the cookies should be just lightly golden and soft).
Rose glaze:
- Work 50 g of icing sugar together with rose water or lemon juice to make a liuker (glaze; it should pour smoothly but not be too runny).
- Glaze the marzipans.
You can also make the glaze with egg white and icing sugar. The resulting pastries will be white rather than translucent.
міґдали — almonds (archaic Galician spelling of the modern Ukrainian мигдаль)