Jocelyn Curry

After featuring real and marzipan mushrooms in my previous post, there was keen interest in my making of the marzipan fruits and vegetables for my son and daughter-in-law's wedding cake. Happy images are still swirling about my mind (the wedding was Saturday!), while the marzipan was mostly eaten up by admiring wedding guests.

Here's a little tutorial for those who are interested in my techniques, basic though they may be. In the top photo, you see the three colors I used to create the marzipan version of Lucky, Eli and Amy's mascot hen. Plain marzipan is colored by adding drops of food color to a flattened ball of the natural off-white candy and kneaded by hand. (Use disposable gloves to protect from the darker colors.)  A silicon baking sheet (Sil-Pat) is a good nonstick surface to use for forming the shapes.

In the second photo, I've roughly shaped a sitting hen, applying the more orange clay around the neck and breast of Lucky.

In the third photo, I've added Lucky's head, and have shaped her body in a more life-like, feathery way. The marzipan sticks well to itself, so you can build and model to your sculptural content.

In the bottom photo, you see that I added tiny bits of licorice for eyes, and I applied some straight red food color to enhance Lucky's comb and wattle. I turned her head to make her look more lifelike. Until it air dries for a couple of hours, the marzipan is soft and malleable.

Tips for coloring some of the vegetables and fruits as shown in the photo below:

Pears: mold pears (mine are about 1" high) in yellow marzipan. Dilute one drop red food color with a tablespoon of water. With a watercolor brush, lightly paint a pale pink tone along one side of each pear. Cut a licorice stem, inserting it after first poking a toothpick into the stem end of the pear. Cut a small leaf shape with a sharp knife, lightly press tip into the stem recession.

Potatoes: use natural marzipan, make potato-like impressions with a toothpick, then dust with cocoa powder after forming.

Wood: knead unsweetened cocoa powder into natural marzipan, adding more to darken the color.

Here you see the cake with all of its marzipan placed upon its layers. Below is a close-up of the top layer, where Lucky is holding court while being surrounded by the harvest of fruits and vegetables. The split-rail fence was fortified by molding the marzipan around chocolate Pocky sticks, and allowing the sticks to extend from the bottom of the fence posts so that they could be pressed into the cake.

The tiny baskets were molded from white chocolate.

(Click on photos for enlargements.)

May Eli's and Amy's lives together be long, sweet and fruitful. Cheers!