Marzipan and Pumpkin Pie Part 2 by KimB

Those simple words “soft-ball stage” meant a disaster was on the horizon.

First, every attempt I ever made at making fudge, which requires cooking to a soft-ball-stage, was an unmitigated disaster. In fact, I blame all my pumpkin pie failures on the fact I never made decent fudge. Second, I never owned a candy thermometer and I wasn't going to go buy one just for “this”.

I spent few minutes, maybe 5 in all, considering my alternatives and decided to “Just Go For It”. The mix went on the stove, a small bowl of cold water to test, and away we went. I figured it couldn't come out any worse than any of the fudge I ever made, so what's to lose?


Marzipan Cooling

After a cooking, stirring, not stirring, dropping bits into the cold water, I made the Official Determination that it was DONE and turned it out to into a cooling dish. It looked like beige fudge.

In fact, it looked good.

I rolled it into small billiard ball size lumps as directed. I was actually rather pleased with myself. It looked like it was supposed to. I put some in the freezer and some in the fridge so I could start making those cute little almond fruit shapes.

You ever notice how when things look like they are going well, they are actually going over a cliff?

A few days later, after my fingers had recovered from their “almond peeling experience”, I decided it was time to start making those nice fruit shapes. I envisioned apples, pears, bananas, cherries, maybe some flowers too. I took one of the marzipan lumps from the fridge and …. it was like a rock. Oh? Maybe it needs to warm up some so I let it sit a few minutes. Hmm, still like a rock. Ok... I put it in the nuke for 15 seconds. It came out warm but the rock like quality was still there. In fact I realized it WAS a rock. Oh Oh.

I took out the meat tenderizer which has a bit of weight to it, and gave it a whack, just to test. The meat tenderizer bounced off the surface confirming its rock qualities, which showed no dents or dings. I had to get a hammer to get in a good smack just to chip off an edge. I worked up a light sweat smacking it into small chips. You ever want to take out some frustrations, I can recommend my marzipan-rocks and a hammer.

Since it was pretty plain that no cute little shapes were going to appear from this lot, I re-wrapped the chips placed them back in the fridge. I had no idea what I was going to do with it all.

[Editor's note: This story is Part 2 of 3 and was written by KimB.]


Marzipan Rocks