Marzipan

So what you saw yesterday was indeed whipped egg whites with sugar. aka meringue :) that said meringue gets folded into this dough to lighten it up a bit. So what exactly are we making you ask?? 7-layer marzipan cookies!! If you live in the NYC/NJ area, you probably have seen these cookies... there are many imitations out there though... that are just colored cake, without any real almond paste to be found *BLEH!* they should be ashamed of themselves trying to pass those gross things off as the real mouth water almond paste 7 layer cookies that I along with the rest of my family LOVE! And in case you didn't realize... these things are BAD for you, this is NOT a healthy stephchows recipe... these are pure unadulterated sugar and butter laden pieces of heaven. But as nana said, "everything in moderation" so once a year, I can totally make and chow these :)

When I gave my dad the first taste of these he said "oooooo this makes me want to never eat the store bought bakery ones again... these are good!"

WOOOHOOO!! (oh in case you are wondering my gingerbread bagels are now safe and sound in my freezer, thanks again dad!)

Onto the cookies... these take some serious time. Perfect for a cold day in the Poconos where there is no TV reception and certainly no internet. Most of the time is inactive but make sure you have a good half day to make these. Oh and we don't have a stand mixer in PA... I have a new appreciation for my kitchen aid now!

So what are the 7 layers you ask?

You start and end with a layer of chocolate that is sandwiching a layer of green dough then a layer of apricot jam, then yellow dough, more apricot jam, and finally red dough.

my sister is a professional at stiring. she helped a ton by folding in the egg whites and then helping stir in the food coloring.

We... (and by we I mean me) were too impatiet to wait to put the layers of chocolate on so we sampled some sans chocolate before dinner. After dinner though we added the chocolate, delicious!!!

yeah you may notice we only did chocolate on the top... the need to eat these things overruled the need to add the bottom chocolate layer.

For the recipe and full directions on how to make this check out Smitten Kitchen. I found the recipe on her site and knew I had to make them :)