No. 139

Marchpane Paste with Orange-Flower Water

Pate Massepain a l'eau de Fleur d'Oranger

One pound of almonds, one pound of sugar, one gill of orange flower-water and the juice of one lemon. Peel the almonds, wash them in cold water, drain on a cloth and pound them with the orange flower-water, adding the sugar and the lemon-juice; obtain a very fine paste and put it into a small saucepan to dry on a slow fire, turning it steadily until all the moisture evaporates and it detaches from the sides and bottom of the pan. A round bottomed saucepan or basin is far preferable to the flat ones, which are in general use.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A working marzipan base from Ranhofer's elementary section, meant to be held and drawn on for petits fours, cake covering and confectionery rather than eaten as it stands. The hinge is the drying: the paste must be cooked down until it pulls cleanly from the pan, or it will never hold a shape or keep.

A gill of orange-flower waterA gill is half a cup, 4 fl oz. That is a large quantity by the standard of today's bottled orange-flower waters. Start with a tablespoon or two, taste the paste, and add more only if it needs it; the liquid is there partly as a pounding medium and most of it is driven off in the drying anyway.
Peeling the almonds"Peel" means blanch: pour boiling water over shelled almonds, let them stand a minute, and slip the skins off. The wash in cold water and the drain on a cloth matter, since surplus water lengthens the drying stage considerably.
PoundingA mortar is not required. A food processor works, but pulse in short bursts and keep the mixture cool; almonds worked continuously heat up and throw their oil, which gives a greasy, separated paste instead of a fine one. Adding the sugar early helps absorb the oil and keeps the grind dry.
ProportionsEqual weights of almonds and sugar, 1 lb each, gives a firm modelling paste rather than the sweeter 1:2 confectioner's marzipan. The recipe does not specify the type of sugar; a fine or superfine sugar dissolves faster and grinds smoother.
Slow fireLowest possible heat, and constant motion. The paste scorches readily and sugar that catches will speckle the whole batch brown. A heavy pan and a stiff spatula are worth more than a thermometer at this stage.
The round-bottomed panHis point is that a flat-bottomed pan leaves a corner the spoon cannot reach, where the paste sticks and burns. A rounded saucepan or a metal bowl over gentle heat solves it; a bain-marie is slower but nearly foolproof.
Knowing when it is doneThe paste is ready when it balls up and leaves the sides and bottom clean, and a pinch is no longer tacky to the finger. Turn it onto a marble slab or a sugared sheet to cool, then knead it smooth.
Yield and keepingAbout 2 lb of paste. Wrapped airtight it keeps several weeks in the refrigerator and months frozen; let it come back to room temperature before working it, or it will crack.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer put this among the Elementary Methods of The Epicurean (1894) because a Delmonico's pastry department would have made it by the batch as a raw material, not a finished sweet: massepain went into petits fours, glacéed fruits, cake coverings and moulded ornaments. Marchpane is the older English form of the word, current from the sixteenth century, and both it and the French massepain and Italian marzapane have been traced, though never conclusively, to a Mediterranean term for a small box or a measure of goods. Almond-and-sugar pastes reached European kitchens through the medieval Arab world, where sugar was worked as a confectionery medium long before it was cheap in the north, and by Ranhofer's day the paste had been a fixture of the professional pâtisserie for centuries. The orange-flower water is the period's signature: distilled bitter-orange blossom was one of the standard flavourings of nineteenth-century French confectionery, used where a modern kitchen would reach for vanilla or almond extract.