Coloring marzipan: 4 ideas in the test with instructions

• Color marzipan
  • Mix food coloring | manual
  • Paint with food coloring | manual
  • Dye with natural colors | manual
  • Paint with chocolate | manual

Marzipan is one of the most popular sweets in the German-speaking world and is often used for a variety of different desserts. Whether filled with marzipan-filled chocolate or figures made from the ground almonds, the consistency offers numerous uses. If you are a marzipan artist yourself, it is interesting to know how the mass is dyed.

Dyeing marzipan is a classic method of using the sweet mass in a decorative way. Pastry chefs have used this method for centuries to make figures or whole cakes so appealing. If you want to create small pieces of art yourself or decorate a cake with the mass, you can easily do it yourself with the right ideas.

There are a handful of ideas with which you can dye marzipan on your own and thus show it off. In this way marzipan flowers look much more decorative or a cat an eye-catcher. The big advantage: The ideas can be implemented excellently with cheap colors.

Color marzipan

Coloring marzipan: 4 ideas

If you are looking for ideas to color marzipan, you do not have to continue browsing. The popular mass of almonds and sugar can be dyed excellent with the appropriate methods and for this you need neither confectioner knowledge, nor are high costs incurred. One of the classics in dyeing, of course, is the variant with food coloring, which you can either mix directly into the mix or use for painting.

The third alternative is the use of self-produced natural dyes, which can come from plants, fruits or even animals. Last but not least, you can use other confectionery, melt it and use dyeing or decorating . Take some time to let the individual colors appear as intense as possible.

Tip: Wear care with all instructions Gloves for dyeing. The colors are intense and can even after a short exposure time lead to spots on the skin, which remain visible for a long time and are difficult to remove.

Mix food coloring | manual

One of the simplest methods is to incorporate food coloring directly into the mass, resulting in immediate results. In this idea, the entire marzipan, which was mixed with the color, so that individual balls, discs or other shapes can be colored.

Due to the structure of the colors, the marzipan makes them a little brighter, but not as strong as, for example, home-grown plant colors . If you want to dye with these marzipan, you need the following utensils.

• Food coloring in the desired tone
• optional: water for mixing with paint in powder form
• paper towels

When choosing colors, make sure that dark colors produce much more intense results. Bright tones such as red, yellow or pink are often presented together with the almond paste as a pastel.

Then proceed as follows:

Step 1: Begin by splitting the marzipan compound into large pieces that you then dye. In doing so, you orient yourself by the amount that you really need.

Gently knead the almond-sugar mixture to make it soft and supple, which greatly improves the effect of the food coloring.

Step 2: Then you mix food coloring, if you use a variant with powder. It's best to prepare all the colors that you want to dye the marzipan and do not dry it so quickly. You have to hurry up or keep kneading.

Step 3: Apply a little paint directly to the mass and start kneading again.

Over time, the paint spreads evenly throughout the mass and you have a uniform tone that is either more intense with more color or more marzipan shallower. No matter how much color or almond paste you give, each time you have to knead extensively.

Step 4: Once the desired shade has been achieved, allow the marzipan paste to dry for a period of 15 to 20 minutes. If there are any dents in the mass then just put some water on your fingers and gently rub them out.

Once you've colored all the marzipan pieces, you can now use them as you wish. Be sure to still wear your gloves as the color may still get on your skin. Likewise you should not put it on sensitive surfaces, for example a wooden work surface in the kitchen.

The reason: The marzipan mass loses moisture and on these dyes can emerge, which are then absorbed by the material. Therefore always store on kitchen paper or even baking paper, so that you do not accidentally ruin your kitchen or the dining table. This is very important when dyeing marzipan with your children.

Tip: If you want to color the marzipan black, you can easily mix this shade of other colors. To do this, use half a teaspoon of blue, brown and purple food coloring, one teaspoon of water and two teaspoons of powdered sugar mixed in a bowl and then added to the marzipan mixture as described above.

Paint with food coloring | manual

If you do not want to color the marzipan, just decorate it, you will need one or more brushes besides the desired color. Prepare the marzipan for dyeing as explained above and then paint the paste with the paint.

You can easily apply several strokes with the brush on top of each other and in this way intensify the color. But do not knead the mass as soon as you finish painting, otherwise you will negatively affect the result.

Tip: If you want the effect of the colors to look like a watercolor, complete the dyeing with a little artificial vanilla extract that has been previously mixed with water. You can even use edible glitter or other deco products and apply them directly to the paint.

Dye with natural colors | manual

Color marzipan with homemade natural colors

Another way to color marzipan is to use foods, plants and animal substances that allow intense hues . This method is especially popular with children, as it is a lot of fun to see how flowers or blueberries turn into a color that you can then use to dye. Contrary to the food colors you have to pay attention that with marzipan dyeing with natural colors the intensity is not quite so intense.

In addition, the taste of the colors is strong and for this reason you should focus on sweet or tasteless "raw materials". You do not want your marzipan to taste like onions or red cabbage. The following ingredients can be used for this reason.

• Blue: blueberries, flowers of the mallow
• Red: Hibiscus flowers (dried), alternatively jam
• Orange: carrots
• Violet: elderberries, blueberries
• Green: stinging nettles
• Black or Gray: cuttlefish ink

Turmeric and curry are among the most popular spices, but they do not really match marzipan and its flavor. In contrast, squid ink is whitewashed in small amounts by the taste of marzipan and does not interfere in this way. It's the same with carrots. You just need to grate a large part of the above ingredients or squeeze them in a cloth in one piece to get enough color. The flowers, however, are placed in water for a long time and stinging nettles for half an hour and strained.

The berries can easily be stomped in a mortar. Once you have made the color, you must massage it into the marzipan mass as described above. Make sure that you also wear gloves here during the production of the colors, since just flowers and berries can quickly lead to stains. When applying with brushes, you should take care to moisten it before, so that it can absorb more color.

Tip: Alternatively, you can use the natural colors to color icing and in this way conjure a delicious and intense coloring. For this you should use two tablespoons of liquid color like carrot juice and mix it with 250 grams of powdered sugar and a tablespoon of lemon juice to color the marzipan mass with this icing.

Paint with chocolate | manual

Melt confectionery and color marzipan: Instructions

If you do not want to use food coloring or even make natural colors, you can make it easy with the melting of other desserts. As they melt quite smoothly when melted, it is easy to use and even decoratively use.

Above all, logos are gladly implemented in this way, since the "colors" filled in a piping bag can easily be passed over the marzipan compound. The only point that you have to keep in mind with this idea is the taste of the sweets used, as they are not covered by the almond paste. Among the most popular variants with the available color include the following.

• Chocolate: white, brown, light black
• Licorice: black, red

If you're not a fan of licorice, you should stick to chocolate . In addition, the milk product is much easier to melt than liquorice. Nevertheless, liquorice has a big advantage: the color intensity is noticeably stronger. No matter which variant you choose, both sweets are melted the same way.

For this you need:

• cooking pot
• Bowl (smaller than the saucepan)
• Wooden spoon or spatula
• piping bag
• possibly a funnel

Ideal would be a bowl of metal, as these offer the best conditions for melting. Once you have the utensils ready, you can start melting.

Step 1: Cut or break the chocolate or licorice into small pieces. This facilitates the process. Put this in the bowl.

Step 2: Fill the saucepan with water a few centimeters and let it boil. Then lower the flame down so that the water is simmering steadily, but does not boil properly. Now put the bowl in the water. Depending on the amount of water used, you do not have to hold the bowl, as it will not tip over.

Step 3: Start by heating the chocolate or licorice in a water bath, stirring constantly. Make sure that chocolate can become too fluid very quickly, while licorice needs between 30 and 50 minutes before you see first results. Both masses should be as supple as possible.

Step 4: Once the mass has melted sufficiently, carefully fill it into a piping bag. Make sure you do not burn yourself, especially on the licorice, as it can be quite hot.

About the piping bag you can use the melted mass easily to marzipan color. Alternatively, you can pour larger quantities directly from the bowl, which is also possible.

Admittedly, this variant does not directly dye the mass, but produces a layer of licorice or chocolate that can even fall off again. For this reason, it is ideal for use with cakes or pralines filled with marzipan .

Tip: Make sure that vegan chocolate is a little harder to melt than milk-based chocolate. Of course, it is possible, but you have to heat even more careful here, so as not to separate the individual components too much.