Making Marzipan Candy Vegetable Garnishes

Making marzipan candy is a fun and easy homemade gift for the holidays. It also makes a beautiful garnish on baked goods like cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. This is a fun project to do with kids too!

What are marzipan candies?

Marzipan fruits and vegetables are popular candy in Europe especially around Christmas time and Easter. They are usually found in sweet shops or bakeries.

What’s marzipan made out of?

Marzipan is a blend of ground almonds, sugar, raw egg whites and glucose syrup or corn syrup. Other flavorings can be added such as orange blossom water or rose water. Unlike almond paste, marzipan is considered a candy.

In its natural state, it’s very light or white, which makes it easy to color. It’s also firm and easy to mold and shape. Marzipan can also be used as a filling in cakes or pastries. Although you can make it from scratch, I prefer to buy it, since I usually use it as a garnish or as a supplement to other holiday desserts.

How do you make marzipan into fruit shapes?

First of all be sure to buy marzipan, and not almond paste, because they have different textures and purposes.

Almond paste is great for baking, like in this Almond Bread, but is too soft for molding. If you use gel food coloring, (affiliate link), which I prefer, use toothpicks to add the color a teeny bit at at a time, until the color is to your liking. It’s easy to add more coloring, but difficult to lighten it once it’s too dark. Toothpicks are perfect for adding detail to the fruits or vegetables.

Lettuce

• Make a small ball for the base of the lettuce. Press small pieces of marzipan with your fingers to give the edges of the lettuce a rough frilled look Add frilled layers around ball for lettuce.

Carrots

• Make a tapered cone shape. Make a small indentation in the larger end for the leaves with a toothpick.

• Use the edge of the toothpick to make random indentations in the sides of the carrot.

Radishes

• To make radishes, blend a little bit of the white marzipan with the red marzipan. Make a round ball with a long tapered end for the root part of the radish. Make an indentation in the top of the radish for a leaf.

Peas

• Make an oblong flat shell for the peas and add three or four tiny balls for the peas.

Strawberries

• Tint the marzipan pinkish-red and form into a roundish cone with a fatter top. Prick the berry with a toothpick to give it seeds. If you’d like dip the toothpick in a bit of brown food coloring to make the “seeds” stand out more.

​Marzipan candies can be made ahead of time and stored in an airtight container for a few weeks.

Marzipan candy is a traditional European sweet popular during the holidays. You’ll find it in pastry, confiseries and confectioneries from Eastern Europe to the Netherlands.