Marzipigs

Every year for my dads birthday I make Marzipan. I make it from scratch and it's a big ordeal in my house. It takes about 2 weeks. Just to get to the stage where I can color and form the dough takes about a week. This year, I just did not have the time to do all of that. So I bought it, already prepared. The first 2 tubes that I bought were hard. Like rock hard. Youngest, who works at the store I bought it from said that they never sell the stuff, it's been there for years. YEARS! I believe him but what to do?

I trekked over to the other side of the lake for the market near Wally World. It's a little more upscale than the other markets in town, it has an awesome wine and micro beer selection and carries a lot of hard to find gourmet type items. I never shop there. 1) it's not close to me, and 2) it's more expensive than my closer stores. I knew if anyone around had fresh marzipan, they would. They did. Before purchasing 3 tubes of marzipan at a dollar more per tube than my local store I opened them up, all of them, and checked. They were soft and pliable. Happy happy, joy joy.

Then I set about the task of coloring the dough. I had decided to not make my usual fruits this year. Not because I wanted to try something new but because I packed my colors and leaves and tiny paper cups. I didn't have time to run around and find all the things I'd need so I thought of making pigs. It sounds a little strange but my dad said that marzipan pigs are sometimes given on New Years for good luck. I've wanted to make pigs for years but never did. So this year, pigs it is. All I'd need is some pink food color and some new papers (like muffin liners). Pig snouts! Why is this blurry? It didn't seem slurry on the camera. Huh!?

I found an old almost all dried up liquid food color pack in the spice cabinets. I didn't buy it and I've no idea how long it had been in there. I normally use the paste variety as it doesn't make the dough wetter. A couple of drops of yellow and I made some roses.

Some pink and yellow roses with green leaves!

Pigs and roses!

More pigs and roses!

HI!

Marzipig and clay pig model.

Now I'll say that prepared marzipan is softer and stickier than my homemade dough. Also, my sons, that love love love my marzipan said it was different than mine. Good, but different. They liked mine better.

And my dad? Said the same thing. My marzipan was better, much better.

Are they just being nice?

Because buying this stuff already made would make my life a whole lot easier. Also, they could have marzipan more than once a year. Because making this stuff wears me out.

PS: Colored coconut sprinkled around to look like grass. Nice touch. My mom hates marzipan but loves coconut. She ate all the coconut.