Frutta Martorana

the marzipan fruits of Palermo: ground almonds worked with sugar into a pliable paste, moulded and painted into peaches, figs, and prickly pears, and eaten at the feast of All Souls

Origin: Italy

From the journey of Sugar Cane.

Cane came to Sicily with the Arabs in the ninth century, and Sicily is where Europe first grew sugar and first learned what could be done with it. The island's confectionery is the direct descendant of that: the candied citron and pumpkin, the cassata, the sugar-work of the convent kitchens, and above all the frutta martorana, marzipan modelled and painted into fruit so convincing that visitors reach for it. The name comes from the Benedictine convent of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio, founded by Eloisa Martorana in 1194, whose nuns are said to have hung marzipan fruit in the trees of their garden to impress a visiting bishop out of season. They are made for the second of November, the feast of All Souls, when Sicilian children traditionally wake to find sweets left by the dead of the family, and the trays of them stacked in every Palermo pastry shop through late October are one of the sights of the city. Marzipan is nothing but almonds and sugar in roughly equal measure, and the ratio matters: too little sugar and the paste is oily and will not hold a shape, too much and it turns brittle and grainy. The Sicilian version, pasta reale, is worked with a hot sugar syrup rather than icing sugar alone, which gives a smoother, more pliable, longer-keeping paste.

Ingredients

Marzipan

300 g blanched almonds, finely ground
300 g caster sugar
90 ml water
1 tbsp glucose syrup or honey
2 drop bitter almond extract
1 whole lemon, zest finely grated

To Shape

60 g icing sugar, for dusting and adjusting

To Finish

1 set gel or powder food colourings (green, yellow, red, brown)
2 tbsp apricot jam, sieved and warmed with 1 tbsp water, to glaze

Method

Put the caster sugar, water, and glucose syrup in a small heavy pan and warm gently, stirring, until the sugar has entirely dissolved. Bring to the boil and cook to 118°C, the soft-ball stage, without stirring.
Take the pan off the heat, let the bubbles subside, then tip in the ground almonds all at once with the almond extract and lemon zest and beat hard with a wooden spoon until it comes together into a thick, stiff, slightly shiny paste.
Turn out onto a surface dusted with icing sugar and knead for 3 to 4 minutes until smooth and free of lumps, working in a little more icing sugar if it is sticky. Wrap tightly and rest overnight at room temperature.
Divide the paste and colour each portion by kneading in a very little gel colouring. Model into fruits: peaches, figs, tangerines, prickly pears, chestnuts, and cherries are the classic set. Set them on a tray lined with parchment.
Leave uncovered for 24 hours to form a skin. Paint on the details with colouring diluted in a drop of vodka or water, using a fine brush, then brush with the warmed apricot glaze for a lifelike sheen and dry for a further hour.

Notes

Store in a tin between layers of parchment in a cool, dry place, where the fruits keep for a month and are at their best after three or four days. Do not refrigerate, which makes marzipan weep. Ground almonds sold as almond flour are usually too coarse for a really smooth paste; grind blanched almonds yourself with a spoonful of the sugar to stop them oiling, and sift. Bitter almond extract is traditional and a very little goes a long way; two drops is enough for this quantity. The same paste, uncoloured, is used to line a cassata siciliana, to make the agnello pasquale lamb at Easter, and to fill dates and prunes; and the technique of cooking a syrup into ground nuts is the same one that produces the Lübeck and Toledo marzipans, all of them descendants of the Arab confectionery that reached Europe with the cane.

The Gastrographer

Name: Frutta Martorana
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 10 min
Yield: 20
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 300 g blanched almonds, finely ground; 300 g caster sugar; 90 ml water; 1 tbsp glucose syrup or honey; 2 drop bitter almond extract; 1 whole lemon, zest finely grated; 60 g icing sugar, for dusting and adjusting; 1 set gel or powder food colourings (green, yellow, red, brown); 2 tbsp apricot jam, sieved and warmed with 1 tbsp water, to glaze

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control