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While I was working on a proposal to present a paper at
this conference I suddenly had the brainwave
-- WALNUT MARZIPAN. (Image on left is Einstein's brain).
The possibilities are endless, as are the calories. Think: instead of almond croissant - WALNUT croissants with walnut marzipan.
I found this recipe online:
Walnut Marzipan
Walnut marzipan makes a nice change it is more nutty and less sweet than almond marzipan. If I were making this with almonds I would blanch off the skins but never have with walnuts. I use the following recipe which was originally from the Good Housekeeping Institute.
You need a food processor. I grind the nuts in a Bamix stick blender processing bowl in 2 batches and then do the rest by hand but it is probably easier if you ahev a proper full size processor.
4 oz broken walnut meats
2 oz castor sugar
2 oz icing sugar plus extra for dusting
1 egg yolk
Put the broken walnuts into the food processor bowl and blitz until they are finely ground. Add the sugars and the egg yolk and blend unitl the mixture starts to bind together. Take out and knead until smooth.
This will make a "sausage" about 11" long to lay down the middle of the stollen dough.
(From
The Fresh Loaf)
I decided to make Baklava. I'd never made it before so this was my first attempt and it was delicious! It was easier and less fiddly than i expected. One thing i discovered was that the chewy element of Baklava is caused by dried figs... Well I Never... I used a recipe by Karen Martini which turned up in this month's Women's Weekly. I suppose it might be more expedient to use recipes from our own online walnut recipe database. What made it so much fun was that I had my gorgeous mother as Sous Chef and, ahem, Quality Control Manager. See if you can pick at what stage we cracked open a bottle of wine... I thought the fingers were excellent, but i might rename them Baklava Spring Rolls. Mum would have preferred a finer grind to the nut mix and more pastry. I would use much less lemon rind next time. Too much lemon rind contributed the misleading impression that I had made a health food. Mum said they were less lemony the next day. I still need to work on my ability to not-eat-everything-all-at-once. My beautiful sister turned up just as we pulled the fingers from the oven. By that time the wine was well and truly flowing as reflected by my photography of the final stages!
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