Baked Marzipan Biscuits

These biscuits are pure nuts and honey. They can be very brittle.

Get
300g organic almonds
2 tbsp honey (Prickly box honey, Bursaria spinosa)
Some (macadamia) nuts for decoration
2 tbsp organic cocoa powder optional
1 egg yolk

Unglazed

Do
Blanch almonds.
In a saucepan or bowl, use a puree stick to make a smooth paste from the almonds and the honey. Kneed the paste to marzipan. Cool for some time in the fridge.

Take a clean (pure linen) tea towel and role out the ball of marzipan. Use cookie cutters to get the desired shapes or make a roll and cut into pieces and decorate with nut pieces. Mix the egg yolk and paint biscuits. Put into a preheated oven and bake at 180°c for about 10 minutes on the second shelf from the bottom. They should be golden.

One traditional shape is little cones, called Bethmännchen ("a little Bethmann"). They have been around since 1393 on Christmas markets in Frankfurt. They usually contain powdered sugar, rosewater, flour and egg as well.

Click to enlarge

For our cones we made a ball, flattened it with an indentation in the middle, and added a fresh macadamia nut in the centre. Pinch the top to close around the nut.
When little bits are left over that cannot be rolled out at the end, cocoa was used to hand kneed them into shapes.
Refrigerate if done anywhere on The Mid North Coast at this time of the year.