How To Make Marzipan from Almond Paste
Marzipan is very expensive to buy in the grocery store, and is often dry and flavorless. This marzipan recipe is super easy. I’ll show you how to make marzipan that is much cheaper than pre-made, and tastes much better.
If you live in the US and you’ve bought marzipan in the grocery store, chances are you were sorely disappointed. Pre-made marzipan is expensive and is usually dry and tasteless.
I always make my own marzipan recipe from almond paste. Marzipan is a fairly luxurious ingredient but is very easy to make. You’ll need just 3 ingredients and it comes together in mere minutes.
Ingredients
- Almond Paste – Almond paste is made from “bitter” almonds, which have the distinctive marzipan flavor.
- Corn Syrup – Gives the marzipan a supple texture.
- Confectioner’s Sugar – Add less sugar for a softer marzipan like you’d use to cover a cake. Use more sugar for molding marzipan into fruits or flowers.
How to make Marzipan from almond paste:
- Combine almond paste with corn syrup to start making your own marzipan.
- Almond paste is darker in color and has a rough texture. Homemade marzipan is lighter in color, is sweeter and has a smooth texture
- Add enough sugar to make the marzipan as soft or firm as you need.
How to use Marzipan
Homemade Marzipan has a million and one uses.
- Cover Christmas fruitcakes with marzipan before finishing them with fondant. The marzipan creates an extra layer to keep the cake moist, plus it tastes much better than fondant. When making marzipan to cover cakes use the lower amount of sugar in the recipe. With less sugar the homemade marzipan is very soft and has a strong almond paste flavor, perfect for a cake covering.
- Marzipan can be used as a candy filling. Add orange zest to the marzipan and a little extra sugar to make it a little firmer. Cut the flavored marzipan it into small squares, cover the squares in tempered chocolate and you’ve got a fantastic little bon bon.
- Use homemade marzipan to make tasty and pretty decorative pieces. Add enough sugar and the marzipan becomes firm enough to make rose petals or holly leaves and berries.
- You can mold life-like pieces of fruit from marzipan, hand color them with powdered food coloring and create a show-stopping centerpiece that is delicious.
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Marzipan Recipe
Ingredients
- 7 oz Almond Paste (see note)
- 2 oz light corn syrup (1/4 cup)
- 8 oz confectioner’s sugar (approximately)
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix 7 oz Almond Paste and 2 oz light corn syrup on low speed until it forms a smooth paste. If working by hand use a wooden spoon to mix until combined.
- Scrape the bowl. With the mixer running on low speed add 1/2 of the confectioner's sugar. If mixing by hand stir half the sugar. Turn the dough out onto a surface generously sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. Knead the remaining sugar into the marzipan. Continue adding additional powdered sugar to achieve the desired consistency (see note).
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Have you tried using a food processor instead of a stand mixer? It seems reasonable to me, it could create a finer texture, but it might go wrong for a reason I haven’t thought of.
I haven’t tried it so couldn’t say for sure. But it is a very, very sticky mixture and needs to be finished by hand to get all the sugar in. You’d have to have a powerful motor on your food processor to not burn out with the heavy mix. I’m thinking it would work similarly to how I do it in the mixer. Start the marzipan in the processor and finish kneading by hand. Getting it out of the processor and off the blade may be a challenge. As far as the texture, because you’re starting with smooth almond paste the final marzipan is fine in texture. I’m not sure the processor would do any better than the mixer. If you try it let me know how it works out.
Thanks. I think I’ll just use the mixer. The processor was a wedding gift and we’ve been married 42 years.
How long when on Christmas cake to dry …… before covering …. And how long before icing thank you and thank you for this recipe please reply asap. Merry Christmas
Are you asking how long to let the marzipan dry before icing? If I’m covering the cake with marizpan and fondant I don’t wait at all. I ice the cake with apricot preserves, then I cover the cake with marzipan. I brush the marzipan with brandy so the fondant will stick then cover the cake with fondant. If you are icing the cake with royal icing you can ice it right away over the marzipan. If you watch the video on the Fruitcake Recipe page you’ll see how I cover the cake. That process is done all in one session.
Hi there. I use marzipan for the center of stollen (a baked Christmas sweet pastry) and unless you go high on the sugar, it gets runny and leaks out of the pastry. Just for info.
I use almond paste, not marzipan in my stollen recipe.
@Eileen Gray, me too
I love the fact that it’s EASY because I am going to attempt the Princess Cake no bakery in
Charlotte will make for me for my birthday. I want a cake I LOVE !
I’m crossing my fingers, ordering the Marzipan Paste that I can’t find at ANY grocery store
(Not Whole Foods, not Fresh Market ) & going for it !
Thanks !
P.S. The scariest part is ROLLING out the Marzipan covering on this particular cake. Oh ! And the fact that although I’m a pretty good cook, baking ? Not so much !
Just make sure you order real almond paste, not marzipan. There’s a link in the recipe card to the brand I use. It’s very good. (I’m obliged to say that as an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases)