Bake
by: Amanda Hesser
September15,2023
4
3 Ratings
- Prep time 30 minutes
- Cook time 20 minutes
- Serves 12
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Author Notes
This recipe was created by Emiko Chisholm, pastry chef at Koloman, who came to the Food52 Test Kitchen to show us how she makes this magical confection that has the scent of an almond cake, the crunch of brittle, the chewiness of a great macaroon, and the waves of chocolate that say candy bar.
Ingredient Note: You may need to source some marzipan or almond paste made with >50% almonds and smoked salt. —Amanda Hesser
Test Kitchen Notes
From "Magical Candy Bars That Anyone Can Bake at Home." —Food52
- Test Kitchen-Approved
What You'll Need
Ingredients
- 500 gramsmarzipan or almond paste (see headnote)
- 250 gramssugar
- 50 gramshoney
- 65 gramsegg whites
- 1 1/3 cupssliced almonds, chopped
- 1/2 cupapricot jam
- 4 ouncesbittersweet chocolate, chopped
- Smoked Maldon salt, for sprinkling on top
Directions
- Heat the oven to 400°F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the marzipan, sugar, honey, and egg whites. Beat together just until the mixture is combined.
- Divide the marzipan dough into 12 equally sized lumps, each a scant ¼ cup. Place a bowl of water by your side so you can lightly dampen your hands, then roll each marzipan lump into a ball, then roll the ball into a log about ¾ inch round. Dip your hands in water as needed, so the dough doesn’t stick. Repeat with the remaining lumps of dough.
- Spread the chopped almonds in a wide, shallow dish. Roll the marzipan logs in the almonds until they’re completely coated, but still retaining their shape. Transfer 6 logs to each baking sheet, placing them at least 3 inches apart.
- Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through. They’re done when the outer edges turn golden brown. Remove the pans from the oven and let cool on racks.
- Heat the apricot jam with 2 tablespoons water in a small saucepan. Simmer the jam until it is loose and spreadable but not watery. Use a pastry brush to spread a thin layer of the jam glaze on top of the bars.
- Melt the chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring in between, until melted. If you’re skilled with pastry bags, you can pipe very thin stripes of chocolate across the bars. Alternatively, dip a small spoon into the chocolate and using a rocking motion with your hand, drip thin lines of chocolate back and forth over the top of the bars. Finish each bar with a sprinkling of smoked Maldon salt. Eat warm or at room temperature.
Tags:
- Candy
- Austrian
- American
- Almond
- Marzipan
- Chocolate
- Egg
- Bake
- Halloween
- Weekend Cooking
- Christmas
- Fall
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latalick
Before starting Food52 with Merrill, I was a food writer and editor at the New York Times. I've written several books, including "Cooking for Mr. Latte" and "The Essential New York Times Cookbook." I played myself in "Julie & Julia" -- hope you didn't blink, or you may have missed the scene! I live in Brooklyn with my husband, Tad, and twins, Walker and Addison.
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10 Reviews
latalick February 7, 2024
I made this for the first time and it turned out perfectly. I had fun rolling out the logs and the results were fab - rave reviews all around.
I doubled the recipe with a 1kg bag of Lubecca Lubecker Marzipan Almond Paste and used semi sweet chocolate
Amanda H. February 7, 2024
Wonderful to hear this! And thanks for sharing the ingredient details you used.
Tara P. December 24, 2023
I've made these now twice and both times they came out perfectly.
I converted the grams to ounces and used "American Pure Almond Paste 7-Pound Tub",
No special equipment, although next time I will try with the shredding tool on a food process to try an mill the marzipan finer.
Amanda H. December 27, 2023
So glad to hear it's working well for you -- and thanks for sharing the almond paste brand you used!
Hannah October 30, 2023
The appeal of marzipan bars won me over in wanting to try this… however, this recipe was an unfortunate waste of time, money, and ingredients. The “dough” is so wet that you could not will these into a shape unless flash frozen. Quite surprised there was not some required chilling period as these blobs decided to bake themselves into the Pangea of marzipan “bar”. Lasting memories of clagginess. Sad day, as I was truly looking forward to making these.
Amanda H. November 2, 2023
Hi Hannah, I'm so sorry you had a bad experience with the recipe. We cross-tested it without any issues so I'd love to figure out what went awry with your batch. Clearly the dough was softer than it should be. Do you remember what brand almond paste or marzipan you used? Did you measure everything with a scale? Let me know and hopefully we can problem solve. Thanks!
Hannah November 6, 2023
Amanda, thank you for the insight! I've been thinking about this recipe for over a week now (the things to lose sleep over). I used Odense and am kicking myself for not double-checking the almond volume! I'll source a better brand marzipan.
I live and breath by my scale for baking, so let's hope the marzipan is the culprit here.
Thank you!
Amanda H. November 8, 2023
Let me know how it goes -- if it's not the marzipan and there's something wrong with the recipe, I'd love to fix it.
vellner September 15, 2023
Egg whites are not listed in the ingredients, yet they are called for in the instructions. How many egg whites are needed?
Amanda H. September 15, 2023
We'll fix this momentarily! Should be 65g.
