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Dessert

Marzipan Fruits and Sweets

A sweet marzipan mixture made from icing sugar, ground almonds, egg white, orange flower water, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Marzipan Fruits and Sweets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Mix the icing sugar and ground almonds in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg white until stiff and fold it into the sugar and almond mixture using a wooden spoon.

  3. Add the salt and gradually mix in the orange flower water until you have a stiff paste.

  4. If the mixture is too stiff, add a few drops more of orange flower water, but avoid making it too soft.

Rest and prepare

  1. Cover the mixture and leave it in a cool, dry place for 24 hours.

  2. Prepare cloves, strips of angelica, blanched almonds, colorings, and a small stiff paintbrush for shaping the marzipan.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Icing sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, forming the body of the paste.
Ground almonds
Supplies the main structure and rich almond texture of the marzipan.
Egg white
Binds the sugar and almonds together and helps the paste hold its shape.
Orange flower water
Adds aromatic flavour and moisture to bring the paste to the right consistency.

The step that matters

Adding orange flower water. Liquid must be added gradually because too much makes the paste soft and hard to shape. Sugar and almond mixtures absorb moisture unevenly, so small additions let you reach a stiff paste that holds its shape.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, almond, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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