Marzipan Galore!

And now time for more marzipan from France!

This was a box of assorted marzipan, with interesting flavours I had never tried before. While there were no labels, I inferred the flavours from what was embedded in it as well as the taste.

The first three from left to right are peanut, lemon and hazelnut marzipan.

Next, clockwise from the top, are orange, strawberry and chocolate marzipan.

At first I was intrigued by the bright colours, especially for the fruity flavours! Nonetheless, I did have my reservations from my previous experience with mixing weird flavours into marzipan, and those misgivings proved right.

Well, let's start with the flavours that make more "sense" first...

Hazelnut Marzipan

This one tasted all right as a marzipan candy. However, I was disappointed that the hazelnut flavour in the marzipan itself was barely distinguishable. Most of the hazelnut flavour came from the nut embedded in the marzipan itself instead, especially given how all the candies are so vibrantly coloured according to their flavour.

Well, maybe the idea was precisely to let the actual hazelnut flavour the candy... *shrug* It was a nice combination I suppose - the crunchy nut with the smoother, slightly grainy marzipan. 

Peanut Marzipan

This is another flavour I have never tried before, and something I was surprised at. Peanuts come across to me as more of a bourgeois flavour, something more usually associated with Asia and America rather than high brow European culture and artisan sweets.

But it turned out to be one of the nicer flavours! I could taste the peanut flavour quite clearly, in contrast to the hazelnut one above, although it was milder than the typical peanut candy you find in Singapore or Asia. Also, the peanut added some nice texture to it. The earthy and calming flavour of the peanut went quite well with the marzipan candy too. A different twist to the usual almond-based flavour.

Chocolate Marzipan

This was also good - second only to peanut because I suppose chocolate is a more common idea for such candies. The darkness of the chocolate was a very nice complement to the sweetness of the marzipan base. And it was also not a very strong chocolate flavour, but the mild bitterness was enough.

Now on to the fruity flavours...

Strawberry Marzipan

Ok, it's possible this was raspberry, because of the magenta colour... but I didn't taste the more "berry" taste of the raspberry, so I thought it was more strawberry.

This was still ok, but kinda weird. Firstly, the nut embedded in it was pistachio. So I was like *scratch head* where did THAT come from? Well, I suppose the colour combination is nice because they're on opposite ends of the colour wheel... roughly. But for all the other flavours they chose similar colours.

Secondly, the the pistachio didn't really add to the flavour, aside from the different texture.

The berry taste was ok and quite natural, not overwhelming either... but I still couldn't taste the nuttiness of the marzipan under it. So I may as well have been eating strawberry candy?

Orange Marzipan

Here, it starts to get terrible... this orange flavour was overpowering and too artificial. I couldn't appreciate it as anything but very sweet orangey candy... so I quickly gulped it down.

Lemon Marzipan

This was the worst! Maybe because I was already grossed out by the orange flavour... anyway, I spit this one out. That was how bad it was.

Summary

Stick to nuts and more refined flavours for marzipan! It's already sweet enough. Anything too strong will just cheapen it into run-of-the-mill candy.