Calissons

Almond and candied melon paste on rice paper, where the melon is dried until it is barely tacky before it is ground.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg.

Ingredients

For the paste

• 250 g candied melon
• 100 g candied orange peel
• 250 g ground almonds
• 150 g icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon orange blossom water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

To finish

• 2 sheets edible rice paper
• 1 egg white
• 200 g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Method

1. THE MELON IS DRIED UNTIL IT IS BARELY TACKY BEFORE IT IS GROUND. Candied fruit comes wet with syrup, and that syrup is what stops a calisson ever setting -- the paste stays soft, the icing will not harden on it, and the whole thing weeps within a day. Spread on a rack and left overnight, or two hours in an oven at 50C with the door ajar, until the pieces are dry to the touch and only just sticky.
2. AND THEN IT IS GROUND WITH SOME OF THE ICING SUGAR, not on its own. The sugar stops the fruit balling up round the blade into a single lump that will not break down.
3. THE ICING IS A ROYAL ICING AND IT IS SPREAD THIN AND DRIED, not poured. Thick, it stays soft underneath and cracks off in sheets; thin and dried for several hours in a barely warm oven, it sets to the hard matt shell that makes these what they are.
4. RICE PAPER UNDERNEATH IS STRUCTURAL, not decorative. The paste is too sticky to lift or cut without it.
5. THEY ARE CUT WITH AN OILED CUTTER, and the cutter is re-oiled every few. Dry, it drags the paste and the edges tear.
6. Candied melon and orange peel spread on a rack and DRIED overnight, or 2 hours at 50C with the oven door ajar, until dry to the touch.
7. Chopped roughly, then ground in a processor with 50 g of the icing sugar until fine and even.
8. The ground almonds and remaining 100 g of icing sugar added and pulsed to a stiff paste.
9. The orange blossom water and lemon juice added and pulsed until it comes together in a ball.
10. A sheet of rice paper laid on a board. The paste turned out onto it and rolled or pressed to an even 1 cm.
11. Covered and left 2 HOURS to firm.
12. Cut into the pointed oval shapes with an OILED cutter, cutting through the rice paper, and the offcuts re-rolled.
13. ROYAL ICING: the egg white beaten with the 200 g of icing sugar and the lemon juice to a thick spreadable paste.
14. Spread THINLY over the top of each with a small palette knife, and left on a rack in an oven at 50C with the door ajar for 2 to 3 hours until the icing is hard and matt. Kept in a tin between layers of paper; they keep a month.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes