In Spain, there’s no Christmas without the Christmas Lottery (Sorteo de Navidad) and yesterday morning, while we were listening to it on TV, hoping to win some millions, I got a bit nervous… after all, winning the big prize is only a thousand times more difficult than getting hit by a lightning! So I decided to bake something to relax. And given that the Lottery thing takes no less than 3 hours (!), I had more than enough time to make some mazapán.

Ground almonds, sugar, lemon essence and cinnamon

In Spain, mazapán or marzipan is a confection of almond meal (ground almonds – peeled), sugar and egg whites (or only a bit of water instead of egg whites), all of this shaped into various forms. It’s a popular Christmas sweet in Portugal, Italy and Latin America, too. Wonderful, creative shapes can be made using marzipan, especially with the help of some food coloring – if you’ve ever seen frutta martorana, you know what I’m talking about.
However, I opted for a simple, basic mazapán recipe.

Ready to rest a bit

MAZAPÁN
(recipe adapted from gastronomiaycia.com)

250g ground peeled almonds
250g confectioner’s sugar
1 egg white
a bit of water
a few drops of lemon essence
a sprinkle of ground cinnamon
1 egg yolk for brushing

Bird-shaped mazapán

1. In a bowl, combine almonds with sugar, lemon essence and cinnamon. Stir well, then mix in the egg white. With the help of your hands start shaping the mixture into a ball, adding a only a few drops of water at a time – as much as needed in order to obtain the texture of marzipan.
2. Let rest a couple of hours (I covered it with a cling film, not sure if that’s needed).
3. After that, shape the marzipan according to your liking. I used this bird-shaped cutter that we both like very much.
4. Place the marzipan forms on a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper, brush them with the egg yolk and place in the oven (preheated to 200ªC) until golden brown (it takes a few minutes). Have in mind that they expand slightly in the oven.
5. Let cool.

Brushing with egg yolk

A sweet Christmas bite

In the end they seemed to give luck too, we didn’t get the big prize but we got some nice profit… enough to lessen the X-mas burden .