If you are marzipan fans then you are in for a treat today. At Duncan’s request, I made a big stash of vegan marzipan truffles. They are sooooo simple and so much fun to make too.
Traditionally marzipan is made with blanched almonds, but I also tried using unblanched ones to a very good effect. The taste is a bit more pronounced, especially if you toast them lightly on a dry pan before grinding them into an almond meal and the resulting marzipan paste has little brown specks in it but that’s hardly a problem. Unfortunately, they disappeared so quickly that I didn’t manage to take a photo. I’m guessing that some of you won’t be that keen on using icing sugar so I made a version with maple syrup too. Whenever I develop recipes, we have this tug of war in Lazy Cat Kitchen’s ‘headquarters’. I always try to make things as healthy as possible and Duncan insists that since veganism isn’t a diet I should stick to traditional ingredients if they are vegan. As I know that some of you are definitely with me, I made two different versions of these truffles. My version uses maple syrup instead and Duncan’s uses traditional icing sugar so I’m hoping to make everyone happy.
300 g blanched* almonds or 300 g / 3 cups almond meal 10 tsp / 50 ml maple syrup 8 tsp / 40 ml amaretto 1 tsp lemon zest form an unwaxed lemon (optional)
MARZIPAN – TRADITIONAL VERSION
300 g blanched* almonds or 300 g / 3 cups almond meal 10 tsp finely ground sugar or icing sugar** 3 tbsp / 45 ml amaretto 7 tsp / 35 ml almond milk or water 2 tsp / 10 ml lemon juice
OTHER INGREDIENTS
175 g vegan dark chocolate 50 g vegan milk chocolate, for decorating (optional) handful of raw almonds, finely chopped (optional)
