Marzipan - Retro Food For Modern Times

Can you believe I’ve been doing this for 6 years? Who knew this was going to last longer than most proper jobs, many romantic relationships and a large percentage of prison sentences!

This is a belated celebration though because I’m having a horrendous month. First I hurt my back and was out of action for a couple of weeks. And now I have an awful cold.

But better late than never! And if we were going to wait for anything? This might be the one!

This is the Crown Princess Victoria’s birthday cake!

Time sure flies when you decide to follow your own brand of weirdness!

But let’s talk about this cake. Because it’s not quite cake as we know it. I also need to confess that I have no idea where this recipe came from. I copied it out of a book but totally forgot to note the book from whence it came. So, if anyone knows, please drop me a line so I can attribute it properly!

It’s also gluten-free for those of you who care about those sorts of things!

First up you need to start with two layers of nutty biscuit base. The original recipe said walnut but I had almond meal in the house so rather than grinding walnuts into meal, I took the lazy girl’s option and used what I had. (In my defence I also had a bad back at the time. 😉 ).

And haters look out, I also thought it would work better with an almond base seeing as I was going to decorate it with marzipan. It was going to be a double almond delight!

Next up a meringue!

Then meringue was sandwiched with whipped cream between the two almond discs. This is where it got a little crazy because the meringue was round on the top and the discs were not. So the sandwiching was a little rough…

The the “cake” was “iced” with more whipped cream and decorated with fresh raspberries and some marzipan roses!

This looked so pretty and was absolutely delicious. The crisp biscuit, the crunchy outside of the meringue and the marshmallowy inside made for a lovely blend of textures. The raspberries added a cake much-needed tang into the overall sweetness of the cake and whipped cream just makes anything a party!

Here’s the recipe:

The Crown Princess Victoria’s Birthday Cake

Print Recipe

A different and delicious “cake” to celebrate any occasion.

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

For The Biscuit Layers

1 1/4 cups almond meal
1/4 cup icing sugar
2 egg whites

For The Meringue Layer

2 egg whites
1/2 cup caster sugar

To Decorate

1 1/2 cups whipped cream
250g fresh raspberries
Fondant or marzipan roses

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

For the Bicuit Layers

Mix together the almond meal, icing sugar and the unbeaten egg whites.Spread out into 2 x 20cm rounds on baking paper on baking trays.
Bake in a moderate oven for 10 minutes until firm to touch.
Turn out onto wire racks and carefully peel off the paper.
Cool.

For The Meringue

Beat the 2 eggs whites until stiff.
Add the sugar gradually, beating all the time until glossy and thick.
Spread out to a 20cm round on baking paper on a baking tray.
Bake in a slow oven until dry and crisp – around 45-50 minutes.
Cool and carefully remove paper.

To Decorate

Sandwich the meringue between the two biscuit layers with whipped cream.
Cover the top and sides with whipped cream.
Decorate with raspberries and fondant or marzipan roses.

You can find an article on how to make proper marzipan roses here. Or you can muddle through and hope for the best like I did with mine!

And of course, I couldn’t let the moment go by without reference to this!

Have a wonderful week everyone!

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Why should you invite a mushroom to your birthday?

Hands up all of you who thought I was going to go with that corny old “Because he’s a fun guy” schtick? Well boo to you!!! My jokes are never that bad. Are they? I’m actually terrible with jokes. The only one I can ever remember is “Why are pirates called pirates?” And the answer is “Because they are” Only you have to say the “are” in that pirate voice. “Arrrre” See? The only joke I know and it’s not even funny written down.

So, mushrooms, parties…I made a cake!!! In fact I made lots of little cakes. And they looked kinda like mushrooms. And you should definitely have them at your next party!

Oh and the taste? So good. Chocolate, marzipan and sour cherry jam….how could you go wrong?

Have I ever mentioned exactly how much I love marzipan? Well, it’s this much – I ate the left over marzipan from making this recipe by itself. Then I bought another pack and ate that by itself too. Then I felt sick for about three days. But it was worth every minute of it.

My mini mushroom cakes are based on a recipe from The A-Z of Cooking which has it as one large cake. This is from the Children’s Favorites sections which means we have hit C. Why does it feel like I have been cooking from this book for YEARS? How can we be only up to C?

To be honest, I’m not sure of the validity of the mushroom cake as a child’s favourite. Teddy Bears, Thomas The Tank Engine, one of those awesome Barbie Pool Party Cakes – hmm whatever, yes and definitely yes, yes yes! (Note to self, Make Barbie Pool Party Cake for next year). I’m not sure there’s many children asking their mum to bake them the fungi cake. Not even back in the hippy ’70’s.

Mushroom Cake – Original

You start with one big or lots of little chocolate cakes. I used the recipe from The A-Z of Cooking but you could use any chocolate cake you wanted. This would be A-MAY-ZING using your favourite brownie recipe too.

Here is the original recipe, my slightly tweaked recipe is below.

Spread the top your cakes with the sour cherry jam,

Roll out your marzipan until quite thin, then cut into rounds large enough to drape over the top and sides of your cake. Trim additional marzipan so the marzipan is flush with the bottom of the cake. Turn over so the uncovered part of the cake is now facing the top.

Roll another long thin piece of marzipan. Spread with the sour cherry jam and roll up, lengthways. Cut this into 4-5 pieces depending on how long you want your stalk. Repeat until you have the same number of stalks as you do cakes.

Pipe or spread your icing onto your cakes. I spread mine and made the mushroom gills with a toothpick.

Then place your stalks onto the middle of each cake.You may need to hold these in place with a little dob of jam or icing.

Despite their dubious credentials as a children’s favourite, these mushroom cakes are just adorable and so tasty, and you know what would make then even better and certainly not kid friendly? Douse the cakes with a little bit of kirsch before adding the jam.

Now that’s what I call a magic mushroom cake!

Three sleeps to Pieathalon!!!! I can hardly wait

Have a great week!!!

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Retro Food For Modern Times

Tag: Marzipan

The Crown Princess Victoria’s Birthday Cake