Marzipan- Reliving Childhood Memories

Continuing the Sugar module, last 2 weeks of class involved Marzipan. Marzipan is basically a plasticine like dough which consist of almond meal and sugar. It can be used to make figurines for display on cakes, rolled onto cakes in place of fondant, made into sweets or used as an ingredient for cakes. There are different types of Marzipan in the market; better quality ones are darker in colour (though some unethical companies would add colouring into the Marzipan) and less sweet as they contain more almonds. 

For the past 2 weeks at BITC, I felt like we were re-living our childhood once again. We were taught how to mould and shape the Marzipan into different types of figurines; animals, flowers, fruits and cartoons. We began with shaping animals, starting with the elephant. I gave my little dumbo some cool specs :)

Elephant Figurine

Next, the Frog. The frog was kinda difficult as making the legs were a little tricky. Chef Goh helped me add a fly to my frog, cute right!?

Frog Figurine

Last but not the least, the Teddy bear. All the marzipan figurines, except the bear and the Santa, were sprayed with colour. As both the bear and santa were more detailed, kneading colour into the marzipan before moulding would be a better choice. The Bear was pretty easy and fun to make; especially when we get to doll up our very own bears. 

Bear Figurine

After the animals were done, we moved on to roses. I was glad I finally knew how to make those pretty roses, I always see on wedding cakes. Making roses need practice and some sort of artistic visualization as the placing of the petals is crucial to making a perfect rose. Just look at Chef's amazing fully bloomed rose.

Chef Goh in action

Top Left Clockwise: Mine and others lol (can't really remember whose is whose)

Leaves were much easier to make as compared to the flowers. All you have to do is roll it into a tear drop shape, flatten it, carve out the veins of the leaves, followed by pushing in the edges of the leaves to give it some pattern.

Leave Marzipan

That was basically what we did for the previous week- animals and roses. Last week's class was a continuation of Marzipan moulding. We started with making fruits! 

Check out how we make the textured orange skin!

The pear was given it's freckles by using a brush

Strawberries donned with black and white sesame seeds

Banana painted with brown and green dye 

Fooling around while spraying colour on our Marzipan

Last Marzipan for the day was the Santa, which was really enjoyable to make. I love how intricate Chef Goh was, he even gave the Santa pants and sleeve trimmings! 

Santa 

From Left: Mine, Khim's and Chef's. Chef's has a white sack!

Entire class's Marzipan work :)

When there is Khim, there is fun; she's dubbed the queen of jokers and mother of nonsense. I'm so glad we became partners as BITC without her would be sooo bland and tasteless. 

Check out our Phua Chu Kang moles :)

Damn, we look gooooood