Orange icing

A marzipan map of the European Union made by the Budapest Marzipan Museum, commemorating the induction of Hungary into the union in 2004. Toledo, where the first written reference of this product dates back orange icing 1512, it is eaten all year round. May 9 and 10 are also special days for eating marzipan in Sicily.

Algarve region in particular it is a very common sweet, where it is shaped like fruits and filled with Fios de ovos. In Greece and Cyprus, marzipan is made in a variety of shapes and sizes and is almost always left white. In Denmark, Sweden and Norway, it is customary to snack on marzipan pigs around Christmas, marzipan shaped as eggs around Easter, and kransekage on New Year’s Eve. In Maiasmokk café in Tallinn, Estonia, there is a small museum dedicated to the history and manufacture of marzipan.

Traditional Swedish princess cake is typically covered with a layer of marzipan that has been tinted pale green or pink. In Belgium and the Netherlands, marzipan figures are given as Saint Nicholas’s presents. Mozartkugeln are a famed export of Austria made of marzipan balls dipped in dark chocolate. In the United Kingdom, celebratory fruitcakes are decorated with a layer of marzipan- particularly Christmas cake which is covered with white sugar icing, and at Easter the Simnel cake contains a layer of marzipan, a further layer decorates the top and is lightly grilled or toasted to colour it. In Geneva, a traditional part of the celebration of L’Escalade is the ritual smashing of a chocolate cauldron filled with marzipan vegetables, a reference to a Savoyard siege of the city which was supposedly foiled by a housewife with a cauldron of boiling soup.