History of Marzipan Desserts & Sweets

Series Summary

If Ben Franklin could be convinced to amend his own words posthumously, he might say that dessert is also proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Though every culture has its own variation on what qualifies as dessert, sweet foods are an essential part of the human dietary experience. Their relatively minor role as a player in the nutritional pyramid belies their powerful ability to bring a smile to almost anyone’s face. And dessert’s importance is tied to what it reminds us of: home cooking, of times spent at the kitchen table, of birthdays, weddings and celebrations…and of Grandma’s secret recipes.

In this free dessert cooking class on video, learn how to make marzipan candy and cake decorations. Marzipan is a sugar and almond confection known for its ability to be molded into shapes as various as you can imagine. Our expert will walk you through making some basic marzipan delights, including a strawberry, a raspberry, a carrot, an orange, a leaf, a rose, and chocolate covered candies. She’ll explain the ingredients and utensils you need to get started, how to shape the confections, and how to add some finishing touches. Also learn how to use marzipan for cake decorating, with ideas for creative presentation and flair. Enjoy!

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Rachel Dayan for Expert Village. Today I'm going to show you how to make decorations, chocolate and different shapes out of marzipan. Marzipan is actually made out of almond paste mixed with egg whites and sugar and flavoring together they make kind of a doughy kind of thing which make it easier and fun to create things with plus it stays hard and it gives a fancy look to anything you are making. You have a good imagination and good hands and you are very creative then you have possibilities to make very nice things made out of marzipan. The history of marzipan is actually several hundreds years ago it started in the Italy there was a big drought in Italy and the only trees that survive where almond trees so people started to make all different kind of food from the almonds and there was a German baker that invented made very special pastry out of almond and people loved it so much that they continue to make it through the years and that is actually the marzipan that we are using today. "