Pies, Puddings and Pottages

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/gas 1

Place the almonds and icing sugar in the large mixing bowl.

Add the rose water and water and use your hands to bring to a dough. You may need to add a few more drops of water but it’s important that the mixture doesn’t get too wet. It should be a dry, stiff dough.

Dust a work surface with icing sugar and place the dough on it.

Knead the dough until it’s smooth.

Remove a third of the dough, wrap in clingfilm and set aside.

Roll out the remaining dough to 5mm thick. You can make it round, square or oblong in shape.

Use a knife to neaten the edges.

Line the baking sheet with baking paper.

Carefully placed the marchpane on the baking sheet.

Now it’s entirely up to you how you want to decorate the marchpane.

I suggest rolling out the reserved dough to about 3mm thick and cut out shapes and use stamps to place on the marchpane, using a little beaten egg to stick them down. It really is up to you!

Place in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. The marchpane should be very slightly browned, particularly on any of the raised bits of the decoration.

Turn the oven off, open the oven door and leave the marchpane in place for a further 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Use the gold leaf or spray and incorporate into the surface design as you wish.

Transfer to a flat serving dish or platter.