My lovely child informed me that he needed a "German food" made before the end of the marking period. The end of said marking period is Friday. This Friday. And C#1 knew about this for two weeks. What?!?! The only good thing is that there are a couple days to figure this out. And thankfully I have a multitudinous pile of cookbooks.
Lo and behold, in this pile, is a book called German Cooking by Arne Kruger. I've had this book for years and I'm not sure I even cracked it open. Shameful. I know.
I actually found a recipe that was manageable on such short notice and didn't require a trip to the grocery store. I did alter the recipe, since, I am 1. Lazy and 2. Always looking (and hoping) for a good shortcut for a last minute cooking assignment.
So here is the recipe with all of the easy changes, that practically made it a different recipe...
Konigsberger Marzipan (Almond Paste Cookies)
Page 81 in the book; if you want to do the harder, more complicated version.
Cookies:
3 cups finely ground almonds -- I blended 3 cups sliced almonds in a blender. They were mostly ground down. There were a few whole pieces at the end.
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoons almond extract -- I used a little bit more.
4 tablespoons orange juice
Icing:
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Mix together almonds, confectioners sugar, almond extract and orange juice. Stir until completely blended. Butter the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Press the dough into the bottom of the pan.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until top is lightly browned.
Mix all of the ingredients for the icing and spread onto the cooled (still warm) marzipan.
Cut into bars.
The original recipe had you foiling and chilling and using cut-outs and adding candy. And also guessing how long to cook it "Bake in a very hot oven until lightly browned." Now that's helpful, said no one ever. That said, I wasn't going to be a slave to this recipe and was glad to find out I didn't need to be.
Hopefully C#1 will give me a little more notice next time. But, I won't hold my breath.
Till next time...
