\n<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve long sought a grown-up candy bar, and think I\u2019ve finally found it. The L\u00fcbeck Marzipan on the dessert menu at Koloman<\/a>, a French restaurant in Flatiron, has the scent of an almond cake, the crunch of brittle, the chewiness of a great macaroon, and the waves of chocolate that say candy bar.<\/p>\n I asked Emiko Chisholm, the pastry chef at the restaurant, to come by our test kitchen to show me how to make this magical confection.<\/p>\n Luckily for us non-pastry-chefs, her recipe requires little equipment, just some mixing, shaping, baking, and topping. Marzipan, sugar, honey, and egg whites are blended to a stiff paste, rolled into logs, dipped in finely chopped almonds, and baked. At this point, your kitchen will take on an intoxicating almond scent.<\/p>\n If there is a challenge with this recipe, it\u2019s sourcing the smoked salt and the best marzipan or almond paste you can find. Emiko uses L\u00fcbeck marzipan, which contains 52 percent almonds. I couldn\u2019t find a source for it online, so I tried three different almond pastes, whose almond content hovered close to 50 percent; this<\/a> was my favorite. Maldon Smoked Salt is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n As I learned after testing Emiko\u2019s recipe on my own, the results are binary. If you\u2019re precise and patient, as Emiko is, your marzipan bars will look like neat bricks. If you\u2019re loose around the edges, like I am, your bars will look rustic and homespun.<\/p>\n Emiko\u2019s been baking professionally since she was 17, first at a small place near where she grew up in Upstate New York. Mark Tasker, the Head Baker at Balthazar in Soho, was a regular customer, and one day he asked her if she\u2019d like to come work for him in the city.<\/p>\n \u201cI worked my way up from a baby, who didn\u2019t know anything about pastry, to pastry sous chef,\u201d Emiko said of her ascent, first at Balthazar, then at Augustine and now Koloman. Throughout that path, she\u2019s had mentors with expertise in traditional European pastry. Mark\u2019s work was influenced by a German baker. Her current boss, Marcus Glocker, leans toward Austrian and Eastern European pastry. Another dessert on the Koloman menu is an Esterh\u00e1zy Torte, a Hungarian cake with 13 layers of almond and hazelnut sponge cake.<\/p>\n A marzipan dessert presents some risks on a menu. \u201cEveryone knows marzipan fruits and they\u2019re kind of nasty,\u201d Emiko said. \u201cSo marzipan doesn\u2019t always have the best reputation.\u201d (Do brush up on the SNL<\/a> spoof if you\u2019ve got time!) But she knows its powers as a background flavor and texture. She uses marzipan as a foundation for cakes, creaming it with the sugar and butter. She also puts it into ice cream bases. And of course, it goes into her stollen.<\/p>\n After baking her Marzipan Bars, Emiko uses a bench scraper to clean up any uneven edges on the bars so that they\u2019re perfectly straight. She brushes the tops with apricot jam, diluted with a little water and warmed to a syrup. The final touches are thread-thin diagonal stripes of melted chocolate, piped exactingly, and a sprinkling of smoked Maldon sea salt.<\/p>\n As she piped the chocolate, I tried to imagine myself doing that at home.<\/p>\n Nope.<\/p>\n \u201cCould you just use a spoon to dip into the melted chocolate and swirl it over the top?\u201d I asked. Emiko paused, uncomfortably. \u201cYeah, you could,\u201d she said with a shrug. So you can do it my short-cutting home cook\u2019s way, just know that when you do, a small part of a hard-working pastry chef\u2019s soul will die along with your sloppy swirls.<\/p>\n More from Food52<\/h4>\n
\n
\nAre you a marzipan fan? Let us know your favorite ways to use it in the comments!<\/em>
\n<\/center>\n <\/div>\n