Jewish and Greek bakeries often have big, chewy almond horns somewhere in the pastry case, sometimes with the ends dipped in dark chocolate, and whenever I can find them they’re what I home in on. Babka isn’t bad, nor is baklava, don’t get me wrong. I love them both. But neither of them comes anywhere close to mandelhorns in my world. And don’t get me started on mandelbrot–not the same thing at all. AT ALL. Even my great-aunt Tessie’s, which as I understood from my dad were the pinnacle of the form.
Almond macaroons and marzipan confections in general all have three main ingredients–almonds, sugar, and eggs–plus or minus almond extract, rosewater, orange blossom water, or lemon peel, depending on your era and country of origin. They’re very basic sweets that go back at least to medieval times and were made everywhere from the eastern edges of Persia (maybe in China too) to the western edges of Spain and Morocco. You can find recipes for them in The Form of Cury, Richard II’s chef’s cookbook from the late 1300s, and they’re mentioned in early Spanish literature as “Jewish pastries” dating from before the Inquisition.
For years I’ve tried with limited success to make almond macaroons. They always come out flat or hard with shiny bottoms (not that we didn’t eat them all anyway, but really). Over the years I must have collected more than a dozen variations–they’re always listed in the newspapers for Passover, since we traditionally ban baked goods made with flour and other grains during that holiday. Which is coming up.
Right before winter break, I wanted to try and make mandelhorns right for a change, so I could bring some up to my husband’s family. I went back to my cooking file with all the variations and actually looked at them carefully.
There are a couple of ways to make almond macaroons and almond horns right, and I’d been doing none of them. The first is to make an “Italian” or “Swiss” meringue Continue reading
Filed under: baking, cooking, Desserts | Tagged: almond horns, almond paste, bakeries, baking, Desserts, Jewish cooking, macaroons, mandelhornchen, mandelhorns, marzipan, Passover, Passover recipes, pastries, sweets | Comments Off on Mastering Mandelhorns
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