Neapolitan Marzipan Chocolates are the perfect festive gift for the marzipan lovers in your life! These home-made marzipan chocolates are so incredibly delicious, you’ll be swamped in compliments (if you can bare to part with them that is)!
I have a confession, I am addicted to marzipan as well as chocolate! So when I was asked to come up with an idea for an edible gift for Christmas that a child could help with, my mind immediately turned to marzipan.
As a child I would make marzipan balls dipped in chocolate with my mother at Christmas time but we would just use the raw Danish marzipan that you could buy. I think marzipan is a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it, my son won’t touch it.
Anyway speaking to my mother the other day she told me all about the mock marzipan her and her sisters used to make using ground oats and vanilla essence instead of almonds. They would then use food colouring to make green, pink and white layers which they would then cut into diamonds. It’s amazing the things you never knew about your parents isn’t it!
I think I will try making mock marzipan one day but this story was the inspiration for my Neapolitan Marzipan Chocolates. As my treats were for Christmas I used real almonds and added the extra luxury of dark chocolate as it is such a wonderful contrast to the sweet marzipan.
My husband said these chocolates were better than any shop bought chocolates he’d tasted and after giving a bag to both our mums they agreed. Very professional was the verdict.
Not bad considering my 10 year daughter did most of the work and I just rolled out the marzipan and did the chocolate dipping it was a real team effort. I think she particularly enjoyed decorating the chocolates at the end with the flaked almonds and picking out the best ones.
How much do these Neapolitan Marzipan Chocolates cost to make?
I worked out that the 40 generous sized chocolates cost about £4 to make which if you wrapped into 5 cellophane packages (or roasting bags cut flat) of 8 chocolates each (130g) it would cost you 80p per gift. That is a phenomenal saving as marzipan chocolates cost about £5 per 100g off the shelf on average and even more if they are handmade.
How do you make Neapolitan Marzipan Chocolates?
Check out the pictures below which pick up the process after making the marzipan!
More Chocolate & Candy Recipes
- Rocky Road Fudge
- Mini Egg Chocolate Granola Bites
- Christmas Coffee Truffles
- Cookie Dough Truffles
- Raspberry Dark Chocolate Truffles
- Christmas Chocolate Bark
- Chocolate Filled Caramels
- Homemade Mounds or Bounty Chocolate Bars
- Chocolate Dipped Candied Orange Peel
- Brazilian Brigadeiro Chocolate Bonbons
I would be over the moon if someone made these Neapolitan Marzipan Chocolates for me for Christmas or any time of year! So, if you know someone who loves marzipan and you have a willing helper in the kitchen I thoroughly recommend you make these. Think how impressed your friends or family will be to receive such a thoughtful gift!
Neapolitan Marzipan Chocolates
Ingredients
- 200 g ground almonds
- 200 g icing sugar
- 2 egg whites medium size
- ½ tsp vnilla extract
- few drops of red food colouring
- few drops of green food colouring or mixture of yellow & blue
- 250 g dark chocolate I used value
- 40 flaked almond slivers approx
Instructions
- Mix the ground almonds and icing together thoroughly.
- Whisk the egg whites and add to the mixture together with the vanilla extract to form a dough using a wooden spoon or your hand.
- Weigh the marzipan out into 3 equal portions and wrap 2 portions in cling film.
- To the unwrapped portion add a few drops of green food colouring and knead the colour into the marzipan on an icing sugar dusted work surface until colour is totally mixed in. If necessary add more food colouring to get a good green colour.
- Wrap the green marzipan in cling film and then take another portion and with the same process as above work in the red food colouring until a subtle pink is achieved. The last portion is left white.
- Divide a portion of marzipan into 2 and then roll out into long thin sausages with your hands (dusting the work surface again with icing sugar).
- Using a rolling pin flatten the marzipan sausages to get to a width of 2 – 2 ½ cm.
- Repeat for the other 2 portions of marzipan and lay the pink, green and white flattened strips on top of each other in 2 separate bricks.
- You can use your hands to neaten the sides.
- Cut the marzipan bricks with a sharp knife at an angle to form diamond shapes the whole way along. Then cover them in cling film.
- Now melt the dark chocolate by breaking it up and putting it in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once it has started to melt well you can turn the heat off.
- Using 2 forks dip each marzipan diamond into the chocolate and on lifting out scrape away excess chocolate from base.
- Carefully slide each chocolate marzipan onto a sheet of baking paper.
- Decorate each chocolate with a sliver of flaked almond.
- Place in the fridge for 10 minutes to allow to set.
- Remove chocolates from the baking paper trimming away excess chocolate with a sharp knife if necessary.
- Wrap chocolates in cellophane parcels (I use roasting bags) with a ribbon or place in pretty boxes
- Best eaten within a week (if you can make them last that long)!
Helen Allan
These look delicious. I would love to make these with my boys. 🙂
Corinne Faulkner
WOW these look absolutely delicious – I’m going to make them and keep them in my cupboard for visitors coming over !!
Camilla
I wouldn’t keep them for more than about a week due to the egg white in there!
Tracy Nixon
These would have been lovely to make and then gift box and give to someone for Christmas!
Ursula Hunt
Perfect to make for someone as a nice christmas present
Camilla
Yes, I wish someone would make me some more:-)
Maya Russell
A lovely gift idea One I don’t have time to do now but will consider for next year.
Camilla
Thank you, hope you manage to make them next year:-)
Janice
They are so pretty, a beautiful gift.
Camilla
Thank you Janice;-)
Deena Kakaya
Camilla they look so pretty and cleverly contructed…great job! X
Camilla
Thanks Deena, it was very satisfying and my daughter enjoyed mixing up the marzipan and dying it with the food colouring. I’m very lucky that she doesn’t mind getting sticky fingers:-)
Jacqueline
Don’t they look wonderful in that box ans so pretty to bite into. Pity I have marzipan 🙁
Camilla
Thanks Jacqueline, as they say 2 out of 3 aint bad:-)
Jen @ Blue Kitchen Bakes
These are a great idea, I love homemade marzipan, after first making it 7 years ago I can’t go back to the bought stuff. I think the coloured marzipan makes these look really pretty and you’re right homemade gifts are much more special and very enjoyable when they’re edible 🙂
Camilla
Thanks Jen, yep there’s nothing nice than something homemade:-)
Sheila lamare
Well, I headed over to the website and found some lovely recipes, but absolutely no trace of Neapolitan marzipan chocolates! Are you sure that Great British chefs is the right website?
Camilla
Hi, you need to click on the link “Great British Chefs” at the end of my post and it takes you straight there. You would have needed to go into the bloggers section on the site to find me and other bloggers:-)