Pumpkin Patch

The  Pumpkin Patch

 Fall Holidays always feature pumpkins, so why not go all the way out with a chocolate pumpkin that is filled with seasonal candied fruit?  That was the thought behind the small pumpkin patch that we created this year.  

The pumpkin mold was first painted, then filled with chocolate to make a shell:

and finally stuffed with fruit dipped in chocolate:  candied orange slice, candied ginger, candied grapefruit rinds, cranberries, apricots and stroopwafels. 

After the two sides of the pumpkin were gently melted and glued together with the treats inside, they were decorated with a marzipan leaf, glued on with chocolate.  The mold for the leaves was one of the antique marzipan molds that came out of a warehouse in Belgium that was found when it was cleaned out.  

Not all pumpkins are created equal.  Diversity comes in all colors!

Easter Parade

Well, that time of year is rolling around.  The time when we get out all the Easter Molds and go to town.  Sin Confections has a fair amount of antique Easter Molds, made for molding chocolates, marzipan, and ice cream.

Going into the stash of molds that came from Belgium for the marzipan, a few Easter themed figures were made up in almond marzipan.  Since marzipan is so rich, the molds are small.  The exception to that was the nest, which is quite heavy.  No problem.  We all want to eat marzipan around here.

These little lambs are in bright pink and a luster pink for Easter.

These rabbits are about 2 1/2 inches high.

Here's a closer look.

These chicks just hatched!  About 2 inches high.

These singing birds are under an inch tall.

To be fair, the ice cream mold isn't specific for Easter, but it worked well as a nest for the little chicks molded up in the marzipan.  Next week we'll start posting some of the Easter chocolates.

Nuts about Marzipan

People ask "How do you stay so thin working with chocolate?"  Well, other than going to the pool and swimming laps most weekdays, I try to refrain from sampling what I make.  Actually it's easier than it sounds after a while.  That's not the case for me with marzipan.

Antique metal marzipan mold for walnuts

I'm nuts about marzipan.  Not the sickly sweet creamy smooth paste that can enrobe cakes or what you buy at the grocery.  No, I'm talking about homemade marzipan that I grind up myself, often to the consternation of the food processor that frequently smokes and shuts off.  I have to wait for it to cool down and then start grinding over again.  Someday I'll get a professional processor or in my dreams a melanger, but that day is not here yet.  Unless people start appreciating marzipan in this country and I start selling lots of it and have to make many batches.  I'm hoping!

The final walnut from mold above, once painted.

I like to make my own because I like it not to be too sweet.  It also has a little texture.  A processor will never get it perfectly smooth (that's where the melanger comes in).  But I'm OK with that.  And you should be too.  Why settle for mass produced commercial marzipan when you can have something better?  OK, I'll get off the soapbox now.

I lucked into some antique marzipan molds in Belgium, and am having a great time putting them to use.  I got about 40 of them, so you'll see them pop up from time to time.  Quite a few are Easter themed (a future post), a bunch are pigs (a future post and some shown in the 1/1/18 post).  But beyond the traditional fruits there are some that are rather eclectic (crayfish, feathers) and quite a few animals.  I molded up some animals this past weekend when I made the Easter selections.  So I thought I'd share them.

This little bear is just about 2 inches high.  Not so easy to mold, his little feet didn't want to release from the mold.  So I just made one.  All that fur, and the detailed pads on his paws are part of the mold, not just painted on.    I've named him Gary, in honor of my friend who has "Bear" as his nickname.

Here is another small mold, this time an owl.  Her name is Yvette.  She has a very nice backside, too. 

While she is modest, Yvette did agree to turn around so you can see the detail of her wings and feathers, again part of the mold, not just painted on.

Most folks that buy these little marzipan figures don't eat them.  They put them on the shelf!  While they do last a good long time, and I am happy to think of them as art, I certainly don't have the discipline to resist biting off their heads and munching down.  I can always make more...

I hope you give marzipan a try!

Meet Uny the Marzipan Pig

Next off the spray booth runway is Uny, the smallest piggy of them all.  But don't let Uny's size (about an inch high) fool you.  Uny may be the mightiest of all the marzipan pigs.  Uny's certainly the bravest.  That's because Uny is our transgender marzipan pig.

I made Uny in honor of my nephew, who used to be my niece.  Let's hope there is room in every family for every type of pig, regardless of how they identify.

Uny tends to get a little cold in winter, hence the sweater.  I believe it was a Christmas gift, given the colors.  Don't you think it  brings out the sparkle in the eyes?

Heidi the Marzipan Pig

The first Piggy out on the runway is Heidi.  She is the most traditional of all the pigs I made.  But when I make her next time, I will put a little gold disk in her mouth to represent a gold coin, a symbol of wealth.

Heidi has been at a Swiss spa in the Alps, munching away on a diet of sweet green meadow grasses and alpine herbs.  At night she got mud baths and massages, which accounts for her lovely glowing complexion.  You have to admit, that spa she went to really made quite a transformation from that leaden figure of just a few days ago, 

and that pale complexion she previously had.

With those lovely spots, I don't think that she'll have any trouble finding a dance partner to wallow around with, do you?

Marzipan Pigs - Ring in the New Year with Health, Wealth & Luck

As a child, winter time always included lots of great German ethnic food.  There was the lebkuchen that my grandmother and mother made in the summer and stored away for Christmas, the lightly sweet stollen that always graced the breakfast table on Christmas morning, and then there was the marzipan.  From Germany boxes would arrive, filled with the small fruit shapes of oranges, lemons, bananas and apples.  And in my Christmas stocking there was always a marzipan pig.  I made quick work of the candy, and was always on the lookout for when the adults would leave the living room where the open box of marzipan fruits were on display for guests.  It was amazing how fast guests seemed to go through that marzipan...

Now that I'm older, I still have a soft spot for marzipan.  Indeed, my brother sends me a huge box of those little fruit shapes every year to make sure that I am not without during the holidays.  I try not to open it.  So far that box has been sitting in the living room unopened for a week now.  I guess as an adult I realize why that box was always out for guests.  The commercial mass produced marzipan just doesn't make my adult taste buds happy.  But that doesn't make me love it any less.  I just had to learn to make it on my own.

So I did.  I could mold by hand the basic fruit shapes.  Still, I longed for the fanciful shapes of my childhood.  And then I discovered a person in Belgium that had been cleaning out an old factory, and came across boxes of old metal marzipan molds.  Heavy industrial molds that were (to me) in eclectic shapes (think crayfish and leeks).  Only problem:  he only shipped within the EU.  No problem: I have a brother who lives in the EU.  So they got shipped to him.  Since my brother comes to visit the States only every few years, I knew that I'd have to just buy ALL the molds.   New problem:  how to get more than 50 Kg of molds over in carry on baggage without paying a surcharge. Well, after much creative wrangling, the molds made it from Belgium to Copenhagen to Florida and then out to California.  Freight charge $85.

The seller had a LOT of pig molds.   Why?  Frankly I can't figure out why some of them got made.  I mean, I have pig molds of trotters and bacon and sausage.  As if they were custom made for a butcher.  But the stand alone pigs have been traditional gifts for the New Year because they are symbols of prosperity and luck and health.  So let's bring out the marzipan molds and make some traditional pigs to ring in the New Year with health, wealth, and good luck.

Here's what we'll start with.  A stand alone very dapper pig wearing a top hat, and carrying a purse (wealth) and some four leaf clovers (luck).