542273 Fri Jul 25 09:10:33 -0700 2008 11 31 Home Cooking 0 3900816 I plan to try making a princess cake in a couple weeks, generally following directions from The Village Baker's Wife and various other recipes gleaned online. The Village version includes a recipe for preparing the marzipan covering from almond paste (adding 3 cups confectioner's sugar plus a few tablespoons corn syrup and water to 1 pound of almond paste). I actually wouldn't mind doing that but was still wondering if high quality canned marzipan (I've heard Love'n'bake is good) would work equally well as far as being able to roll it out in a thin layer and not being cloyingly sweet. Or are there special advantages to making it from scratch? I ask all this with no experience eating marzipan or princess cake. Thanks for any info! Fri Jul 25 09:10:35 -0700 2008 142612 Double Gloucester 1 3901402 I don't have an answer about the marzipan. Most of the prepared stuff I've tried has seemed overly sweet to me. But maybe that is the nature of the beast. I do have one question though -- what is a princess cake. Fri Jul 25 11:40:17 -0700 2008 3900816 123744 karykat 2 3901440 http://food.ivillage.com/recipefinder/display/0,,s2vq,00.html Fri Jul 25 11:57:12 -0700 2008 3901402 118582 maisonbistro 3 3902177 That sounds wonderful and looks beautiful. I have some domed cake pans that would make that kind of domed shape and might be good for this kind of recipe. I am having some trouble imagining how you would place a marzipan layer over a mound of whipped cream. That sounds very challenging. I hope it works well. Fri Jul 25 15:40:28 -0700 2008 3901440 123744 karykat 4 3902516 Yeah, I'm not sure about the assembly either! I think you are right about marzipan being inherently sweet. I found this thread http://www.chowhound.com/topics/295173 which explains that the extra sugar is what makes it pliable. I guess if I can manage to roll out a thin enough layer, and the cake/cream layers don't turn out too sweet it should be okay. . . Fri Jul 25 18:20:01 -0700 2008 3902177 142612 Double Gloucester 4 3902781 It's not domed from the cake - it's domed from the whipped cream and you're right - it is a challenge. But if you get the cake and cream really cold it hold its shape surprisingly well, considering. I've always bought my marzipan because I've never had enough time to do it from scratch when I've got cake, pastry cream, etc., plus dinner to cook. Coloring the marizpan evenly is time-consuming enough. I'd love to hear your story if you decide to make it from almond paste. (BTW: search old threads on this board for princess cake and you'll get great mailorder sources for buying both marzipan and almond paste at good prices.) Fri Jul 25 20:49:27 -0700 2008 3902177 17220 Claudette 5 3907860 Thanks, I've been looking at some of the almond paste recs on the board. It's good to know that prepared marzipan works fine, and that the cake and cream should be very cold. I'm not making the cake for a proper dinner, just as a fun experiment to coincide a birthday, so I think I will probably try making the marzipan this time. I will post again re: the cake, or collapsed green Martian blob I end up with. Mon Jul 28 09:15:58 -0700 2008 3902781 142612 Double Gloucester 6 3908572 LOL! I'd love to hear your story. BTW: some bakeries who supply coffee houses take the easy way out and make it in a loaf pan so that the marzipan is easier to shape (and they cheat by just folding down the corners); you have to be really patient easing it around the dome, and some wrinkling might be unavoidable. Have fun! Mon Jul 28 12:16:19 -0700 2008 3907860 17220 Claudette 1 4614267 I'm sorry for being so slow to report back on my marzipan/princess cake experiment. Thanks again for your responses! Encouraged by them, I did try making the marzipan from almond paste (using Love N'Bake almond paste, as suggested on the boards) and it was delicious and not at all too sweet on the cake. The process was definitely a fair bit of work, partly since I did not have the food processor called for in the marzipan recipe. I also wasn't sure how much food coloring I wanted to add, and had to knead some of it into the finished marzipan afterwards, which, as Claudette warned, turned out to be quite time-consuming. If I were to make a second attempt, I think it would go much faster, because the desired amount of food coloring is combined with the other liquids in the recipe before adding them to the almond paste/confectioners' sugar combo, and that initial mixing is much quicker than the laborious kneading that's required after the marzipan is fully formed, if that makes sense. I was doing this in August, and rolling out the stuff proved impossible before I'd cranked up the AC full blast (I guess you veteran marzipan users could have told me that!). I was eventually able to go from a sagging ball of grease to a nice thin sheet that in fact ended up being way too big for my cake--a good chunk got trimmed off. As you might see from the pictures, I did not achieve the beautiful dome I was hoping for. I'm glad, however, that this wasn't the result of the cream collapsing under the weight of the marzipan, which was what I was dreading. I simply didn't have enough cream left to pile into a mound on top. I wonder if the cake layers were widening as I put them together? But the green beast tasted so good I didn't care at all. This was also my first time using non-homogenized heavy cream, which I think was also key to its deliciousness. Come to think of it, it was also my first time making and eating genoise (used genoise recipe and also modeling marzipan recipe from The Cake Bible). So it was quite a learning experience with techniques/ingredients across the board! A bonus was that the cake froze beautifully--we thawed some slices two or three months later, and they had held their shape (and taste) perfectly. Thinking back on it, I almost feel up to attempting the whole thing again. . . . Tue Apr 21 07:32:18 -0700 2009 3900816 142612 Double Gloucester 2 4615069 Thanks for the report, and I love your cat - it looked like it ate some of your cake! LOL. Be sure that the cream is very cold before you cover it with the marzipan, and that should help you w/ the dome. Good job for a first time! Tue Apr 21 10:50:26 -0700 2009 4614267 17220 Claudette 3 4615650 Thank you for reading, and for the tip about the cream. Maybe I whipped the cream before turning up the AC, although the cake was of course in the fridge while I wrestled with the marzipan. I will let you know how it goes if I try again! Tue Apr 21 13:00:33 -0700 2009 4615069 142612 Double Gloucester 4 4616499 Or frost the cake w/ the cream and put back into the fridge for a while to harden before applying the marzipan. Also, the thinner you can roll the marzipan the easier it is to manipulate, especially around the bottom where it bunches up. Some people wrap the marzipan around the bottom of the cake so they don't have to trim it but I don't. Just an option. Tue Apr 21 17:02:38 -0700 2009 4615650 17220 Claudette