I had a craving for marzipan the other day. But as I tend to gorge on marzipan whenever it enters the house, I needed a half-decent excuse to go and buy some. After trawling my cookbook shelves I found a copy of “The Cooks Encyclopedia of Chocolate”, a present from Dave that I’ve spent many an hour drooling over but have never cooked from… Shocking behaviour for a chocoholic!

This rather lovely book opens with a fairly substantial section on the history of chocolate before going on to discuss the characteristics of the various brands available in different countries. It then nicely segues into a technique section with excellent directions on tempering chocolate (something I have yet to try), making chocolate decorations and then finally we have the recipes. Recipes for all manner of chocolate goodies. I’ll admit that the recipes are nowhere near as involved or as glamorous as those composed by Pierre Herme, but they’re definitely friendlier for the home cook. Its beautifully illustrated too!

Anyway, enough ramblings about the cookbook. The chocolate marzipan cookies immediately leapt out at me as a good possibility. The recipe is very straightforward (see below), but I do have a few notes/thoughts about it.

I’d suggest trying to roll out the dough between two sheets of clingfilm rather than onto a floured worktop. The dough is very soft and readily absorbs flour which toughens it. I actually found it to be a nightmare to deal with and I really wish I’d thought of clingfilm at the time – hindsight is a wonderful thing.

If you find making paper piping bags to be rather fiddly, just pour the melted chocolate into one corner of a plastic freezer bag, snip off a tiny (and I do mean tiny) part of the corner and pipe using that. Its very quick and easy, and also gives a good finished look. The white chocolate decoration seems to lift both the appearance and taste of the cookies substantially.

I found that the cookie dough was more flavoursome raw than cooked, which was disappointing. I think this is due in part to the absorption of the extra flour and also the lack of salt in the dough. I’d be tempted to add a good pinch of salt and also some chocolate extract to the dough next time around. The contrast between the cookie dough and the marzipan was good though.

Would I make these again? Yes, but only a half-batch and I’d probably also use flavoured marzipan too (grate some orange zest over marzipan and knead it in for a very special taste experience!). Even for a chocoholic, a batch of 36 is a LOT!!

Chocolate Marzipan Cookies, The Cooks Encyclopedia of Chocolate

Makes about 36

200g unsalted butter, softened
200g light muscovado sugar
1 egg, beaten (I used a large egg, and all was well)
300g plain flour
60ml/4 tbsp cocoa powder
200g white marzipan
115g white chocolate, chopped into small pieces

Preheat oven to 190C/ Gas Mark 5. Lightly grease two large baking sheets. Using a handheld mixer (or stand mixer if you have one – you could of course do this by hand too, if you have Arms of Steel), cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well.

Sift the flour and cocoa over the mixture. Stir in with a wooden spoon until all the flour has been incorporated, then use clean hands to press the mixture together to make a fairly soft dough. I used the Kitchenaid to mix in the flour (speed 1), and yes, the dough is very, very soft.

Using a rolling pin and keeping your touch light, roll out about half the dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of about 5mm. Using a 5cm/2 inch plain or fluted biscuit cutter, cut out about 36 rounds, re-rolling the douigh as required. Wrap the remaining dough in clingfilm and set it aside.

Cut the marzipan into 36 equal pieces. Roll into balls, flatten slightly and place one on each round of dough. Roll out the remaining duogh, cut out more rounds, then place on top of the marzipan. Press the dough edges to seal.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies have risen well and are beginning to crack on the surface. Cool on the baking sheet for about 2-3 minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack.

Melt the white chocolate, then either drizzle it over the biscuits to decorate, or spoon into a paper piping bag and quickly pipe a design onto the biscuits.

Variation – use glace icing instead of melted white chocolate to decorate the cookies if you prefer.