It’s almost Christmas and I can’t even believe it! Where has December even gone?! Most years I feel like I end up having the opportunity to meet up with a lot of friends in December at parties and such so I have plentiful excuses to make holiday-themed treats to share, but this year I feel like I’ve done nothing but work, and the only treats I made and distributed were the gingerbread rum “Sandy Claus” cake pops I uploaded last week. That just didn’t seem like enough to me and I was searching for an excuse to make at least one more simple thing, so when one of my coworkers was lamenting that she had never seen marzipan for sale in Japan and she missed it at Christmastime, that gave me the idea to try to make it myself. Marzipan is a popular European confection made from ground almonds and sugar with a texture a bit like Japanese “an” (sweet bean paste). It is typically colored and formed into the shape of fruit, flowers, plants, and the like to be used as decorations like on bûche de Noël (yule log) cakes, used inside of other sweets like chocolates or stollen (German fruit cake), or rolled out and used in place of icing to cover cakes. While it is by no means strictly a Christmas treat (especially in Europe), it’s used in so many Christmas treats that it has a Christmas image at least in the US and can even be purchased premade. However, it is really very easy to make even here in Japan, and is cute and tasty enough to be eaten on its own when shaped into these little mushrooms and dipped in chocolate, so if you’re looking for a simple yet cute last minute holiday treat that doesn’t even require an oven, give these a try★[Continue Reading/続きを読む]