The Joys of Jell-O Recipe #170: Marzipan

Howdy, Jigglers! Providence led me to make today's Jell-O recipe. You see, this photo has always caught my eye when I peruse JOJ (which I often do):

And I do love marzipan: I love almond flavor, I love my desserts to have fun shapes and colors, and, of course, I love this Marzipan. The only thing that's held me back from making this recipe is that blanching and grating almonds doesn't sound fun at all, and I've always had my doubts about how well it would even work, since marzipan should have a very finely ground texture.

Over the holidays, however, I happened to be in a foreign foods store and find a couple of packages of premade marzipan, so of course I picked them up specifically to shove Jell-O into them. In my version of this recipe, then, all I use is commerically prepared marzipan and the Jell-O powder of your choice. Since I wanted to make the maximum number of distinct fruits possible with just one color, I got lemon Jell-O so I could make lemons and bananas.

The method for this recipe (the way I made it, anyhow) is probably the simplest of any I've ever made: squish up the marzipan in a bowl with the Jell-O powder until well combined (for two tubes of marzipan, I used an entire 3 oz envelope), then shape into the fruits or other shapes of your choice.

My sculpting abilities are obviously not the best, but you can sort of tell what they're supposed to be. As the recipe indicates, decorative finishing touches can be added to these fruits through painting food coloring on them (which is well beyond the scope of my abilities) or adding angelica or cloves for stems and such. Since I had them, I added some cloves to some of these. Note: this did impart a slight clove-y flavor to these pieces of marzipan, so if you're not a fan, find angelica, whatever that is.

If you are the kind of detail-oriented person who can decorate cookies, this marzipan recipe would be perfect for garnishing a cake or a fruit tray. I especially love how the pears and cherries look, and I bet oranges would look fantastic too. These are quite tasty, as well; this was another reason I chose lemon Jell-O, as I figured if that tart flavor would go well with the normal marzipan flavor, then any other Jell-O flavor would be fine. Sure enough, the lemon doesn't taste bad at all. The marzipan is quite sweet on its own, so the tartness of the lemon flavor isn't overwhelming. I imagine the cherry flavor would be particularly good for this, though.

All in all, this recipe works surprisingly well (with commercial marzipan, at least), and I admire General Foods's pluck and imagination for developing this charming version of an old-fashioned classic, but now with Jell-O.