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Mazapán

Pressed and never kneaded, because working it releases the peanut oil and it turns to paste.

Vegan.

Ingredients

Method

  1. IT IS PRESSED AND NEVER KNEADED, because working it releases the peanut oil and it turns to paste. This sweet has two ingredients and one technique, and the technique is restraint. Peanuts and icing sugar ground together give a dry, loose, sandy powder that looks as though it could never hold together -- and it will, if it is pressed into a mould and left alone. The sugar binds it just enough. The moment it is kneaded, rolled or worked in the hands, the oil comes out of the peanuts, the powder goes cohesive and slightly greasy, and what results is a dense chewy peanut paste. A mazapán is supposed to collapse into powder in the mouth, which is why it is sold wrapped in cellophane and breaks if you look at it.
  2. IT IS GROUND IN SHORT PULSES AND THE BOWL IS COOL. Processing peanuts continuously warms them and starts the same oil release -- continue and you have peanut butter. Ten or twelve one-second pulses, scraping down between, and stopping while it is still clearly a powder.
  3. THE SUGAR GOES IN WITH THE NUTS AND NOT AFTERWARDS. Both into the processor together from the start. The sugar's crystals get between the nut particles as they break down and absorb the first of the oil, which is what keeps the whole thing powdery through the grinding.
  4. THE RATIO IS CLOSE TO EQUAL AND LESS SUGAR DOES NOT WORK. Three hundred of peanuts to two hundred and fifty of icing sugar. Reduce the sugar to make it less sweet and there is not enough of it to bind, and the discs fall apart in the hand before they are wrapped.
  5. THEY ARE PRESSED HARD IN A RING AND WRAPPED STRAIGHT AWAY. A biscuit cutter or a short length of pipe on a board, filled and compressed with real force using the end of a rolling pin. Then lifted off and wrapped in cellophane or greaseproof immediately -- unwrapped, they dry further and crumble on the plate within an hour.
  6. The peanuts checked over and any remaining skins rubbed off -- the skins are bitter and show as dark specks.
  7. The peanuts and ALL the icing sugar put into a food processor TOGETHER, with the salt.
  8. Pulsed in SHORT bursts -- 10 to 12 pulses of about a second -- scraping down between.
  9. STOPPED while it is still a dry, loose POWDER. Not run continuously.
  10. TESTED: a pinch squeezed between finger and thumb should just hold together and then fall apart. If it is oily or cohesive it has been over-processed.
  11. A biscuit cutter or ring, about 6 cm across, set on a board.
  12. Filled with the powder, heaped, and PRESSED DOWN HARD with the end of a rolling pin.
  13. The ring lifted off carefully, leaving a disc.
  14. NOT kneaded, rolled or handled at any point.
  15. Each disc wrapped in cellophane or greaseproof IMMEDIATELY.
  16. Repeated until the powder is used. They keep 2 weeks wrapped and crumble within an hour unwrapped.

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 Mexico · All recipes