Having a stick of almond paste at home and not knowing how to use it is a sacrilege: it would be a bit like wasting untapped potential.
Sicilian almond paste is a joker, it is used in confectionery in a whole series of preparations, starting with ice cream and ending with cassata .
But the delicacies that can come out of a loaf of bread don't end here: it can be used as a filling for many typical pastries - pasticciotti or bocconotti , among others - or added to different doughs to give life to soft and fragrant cakes. Here are some tips on its uses in the kitchen.
How to use the ready-made almond paste
The ways of almond paste are endless, and if it is often associated with granita , when summer ends there is no need to forget it in the pantry. It is precisely in autumn that the best comes, the moment in which you can experiment by kneading or turning on the oven. Make full use of its possibilities.
Almond milk
Obviously we can only start with him, his majesty almond milk , the undisputed protagonist of refreshing summer breaks. The recipe for Sicilian almond milk with the dough is beginner-proof: just use the right doses (which, incidentally, are 650 ml of milk and 650 ml of water for 250 g of pasta) and go, it's ready in very few moves.
Cake with almond paste
Among the desserts with almond paste you can give a chance to any cake. Add 50-60 g of pasta that you will have blended until reduced to crumbs to the dough for a donut or plum cake and proceed with the addition of the rest of the ingredients (perhaps decreasing the dose of sugar). Nothing simpler!
Sicilian almond paste
In Sicily, with this name, we mean moist and soft biscuits which in the rest of Italy, and beyond, are enormously successful. Almond pastes are made, precisely, starting from the loaf and are the ideal accompaniment for coffee at the end of a meal or for afternoon tea.
Tart with almond loaf
If you are tired of the usual jam tart why not enrich it with an exceptional ingredient? An idea could be the combination of almond paste, to be spread just above the pastry , and lemon or sour cherry jam (slightly acidic and perfect for not running the risk of obtaining a cloying dessert).
Sicilian cassata
Whoever says marzipan says Sicilian cassata : purists, don't be horrified, but the captivating green coating of the dessert made up of marzipan (whose color was once due to the use of pistachios ) is today largely replaced by marzipan almonds colored with food coloring, know it.
Almond granita
Another flagship of Sicilian pastry is the almond granita, a fixed presence of the typical Sicilian (summer) breakfast. There are several ways to make it at home, one of them wants to use the dough. Just dilute it with water and blend it well, then filter what has been obtained and let it rest in the freezer until it is completely hardened.
