Marzipan Chocolates Recipes

Steps:

• Clean and chop up the fresh figs roughly. If using dried ones, do the same. Put them in a bowl. Sprinkle the port wine or rum over them and let them soak for 20 mins. U can use a little more port or rum if you wish to.
• After 20 mins, cut up the marcipan into truffle size pieces. Do not cut up in advance otherwise they dry up as you wait for the figs to soak up the alcohol.
• Melt the chocolate in a bowl over boiling water in a pot. Do not over cook / over heat the chocolate!
• Take a piece of the marzipan and roll them with 1-2 small pieces of the figs into a ball (truffle size).
• Dip each marcipan/fig ball into the melted chocolate and place them on a baking tray (covered with baking paper) . I normally use a satay skewer to handle the marzipan as I dip it into the melted chocolate.
• Before the chocolate hardens, sift the cocoa powder over the marzipan chocolates, followed by a pinch of chilli powder or paprika over each chocolate.
• (in case you need an idea the proportion of chilli powder to cocoa powder, I use about 1/4 tsp chilli to 1 tbp of cocoa powder) You are welcome to adjust the proportions up to your own taste.
• Leave the marzipan chocolates to cool down completely and the chocolate shell has hardened before serving.

Steps:

• Break the almond paste into small pieces over a medium bowl. Add 1 cup of the confectioners' sugar, and work it in with your hands until incorporated. It will be crumbly. Add another 3/4 cup of sugar, and work it in really well. Pour in the corn syrup, and work it in until evenly blended. Spread remaining sugar out on a clean work surface, and knead the dough until smooth and uniform, 3 to 5 minutes. If the dough seems too sticky, knead in more sugar. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about an hour. It should have the consistency of modeling dough.
• Break off small pieces of marzipan to color, kneading in color thoroughly until you arrive at the desired color. Then blend the colored pieces into larger portions of dough. Dust a work surface and rolling pin with confectioners' sugar, and roll dough out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes using small cookie cutters to make candies.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350°F Line a baking sheet iwth parchment paper.
• In a food processor, combine both sugars and marzipan. Process until they resemble a fine sand, about 1 minute. Transfer mixture to a large bowl. Add butter, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, salt and egg.
• Use an electric mixer to beat until smooth, scraping down the bowl, once during mixing, about 2 minutes.
• Add flour and cocoa powder and mix until incorporated, scraping down once during mixing, about 1 minute. The dough should be very stiff. Baking in batches, drop 1 tablespoons balls of dough on prepared sheet, leaving about 2-inches around all sides. bake on the oven's lower rack until cookies are flat and have a crackled surface, about 10 minutes.
• The cookies will be very soft. Let them cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a rack to cool completely. If desired, once cookies are cool, dust them with powdered sugar.