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Strawberry Marzipan
Blanch one pound of sweet almonds, and boil one and one-fourth pounds of powdered sugar to the ball, put the blanched almonds into a mortar, and pound them to a fine paste, mixing them with the sugar. Crush in a muslin bag one-half pound of picked strawberries, squeeze out the juice, and add to it the paste of the almonds and syrup; mix it thoroughly together, put the mixture in a pan, and place hot ashes under it. Continue stirring until the mixture is sufficiently done, that is when a small piece laid on the back of the hand may be taken off again without sticking. Spread it on a slab, and when perfectly cold cut it into any desired shapes.
A confectioner's marzipan, cooked down over gentle heat rather than baked. Everything depends on how far you take the sugar and how patiently you dry the paste.
- "Boil to the ball"Roughly what modern candy work calls the ball stage, in the region of 235-245F; period usage is not precise. Add just enough water to wet the sugar (about a third of its weight) before boiling; the sugar alone will scorch.
- Hot ashesA period way of saying the lowest, most diffuse heat available. Use a heavy pan over the smallest burner at the lowest setting, or a bowl over barely simmering water. Direct heat risks scorching the sugar and the almonds.
- Grinding the almondsA food processor replaces the mortar, but work in short pulses and stop the moment a paste forms. Run it too long and the almonds heat and release oil, giving a greasy paste that will not set.
- BlanchingCover the almonds with boiling water for a minute, drain, and the skins slip off between finger and thumb. Dry them well before grinding, or the extra water lengthens the cooking considerably.
- The strawberry juiceHalf a pound of berries yields only a modest amount of juice, perhaps a third to a half cup, and all of it has to be driven off again. Squeeze hard through muslin and use the juice only; pulp will keep the paste slack and shorten its keeping time.
- The doneness testThe original test is sound and worth following literally: a scrap pressed to the back of the hand should lift away clean. Timing will vary widely with how gentle the heat is -- expect a long spell of near-constant stirring -- and note that the paste stiffens further as it cools.
- Cooling and cuttingSpread it about a third of an inch thick on a marble slab or an oiled sheet pan. Cut once completely cold, with a knife wiped between cuts.
- Yield and keepingSomething over two pounds of finished paste. Kept airtight in a cool place it will hold for some time, though the fruit juice should make it perish sooner than plain almond marzipan.
Marzipan reached European confectionery through the Arab world, and is generally traced to the sugar and almond trade of the medieval Mediterranean; in English it appears as "marchpane" from around the turn of the sixteenth century onward, a moulded and gilded showpiece for banquet tables rather than an everyday sweet. By Oscar Tschirky's time at the Waldorf in the 1890s it was familiar hotel-kitchen work, the province of the pastry department, where coloured and flavoured pastes were cut into shapes for petits fours and dessert trays. The strawberry version here suits that setting: the fruit contributes colour and perfume but no bulk, and pounding a pound of almonds by hand and stirring the paste dry over ashes is slow, labour-heavy work.