Dragon Marzipan Centrepiece – GBBO Showstopper Challenge (Week 8)

Week 8! Tudor Week!

Yeah, I didn’t realise that was a typical baking style either. My mistake.

This week had the bakers making various indulgent treats fit for Henry VII! A savoury pies signature, a ‘jumbles’ technical (what the hell are those?), and a 3D marchpane cake showstopper.

According to the brief food history bit of the episode that no one really pays attention to, marchpane was used to construct these crazy elaborate centrepieces that you absolutely had to have on your 16th century banquet table if you wanted to prove your worth! ‘Marchpane’ is basically the old name for marzipan, but made with just ground almonds, icing sugar and rose water whilst the modern version usually includes almond flavouring and and egg to soften too.

This week’s challenge was to make a 3D marchpane centrepiece to the following criteria:

• seemingly needed to include a cake
• also seemed to require both marchpane and marzipan, made from scratch
• entirely edible
• 3 hours 30 mins

The design could be anything, although most bakers seemed to go with a Tudor-ish theme. I went for a dragon. As you do.

From the moment Mel mentioned ‘dragon’ as an example of a marchpane centrepiece during the food history bit, I was gone. Typical Ang making things difficult for herself!

Anyways, I then decided I was going to pair my Tudor dragon with a fiery stem ginger cake. Because dragons breathe fire. And they love ginger. Fact.

Here’s how I got on…

I first started by making the ginger cake. I did this by weighing out the flour, bicarb and spices into a large bowl and giving them a quick mix.

Then in a large saucepan, I melted the butter, dark brown sugar, black treacle and golden syrup over a very low heat until the sugar dissolved and all was combined.

In a separate container I beat together the egg and the milk.

I also finely chopped some stem ginger for some extra heat.

I then poured the melted ingredients into the dry, along with the eggy milk and the chopped stem ginger, and mixed till fully incorporated.

I poured the mixture into a lined 2lb loaf tin and baked at 180°C for 50 minutes. Once baked I let this aside to cool whilst I got on with the marchpane and marzipan.

For the marchpane I mixed the ground almonds and icing sugar together. Ideally you should pulse them together to get a really fine powder for a smooth dough but I only have a dinky chopper at home and I wasn’t going to waste time pulsing it in tiny batches!

I then mixed in a few tablespoons of rose water to bring it together as a dough. You’ll probably need to get in with your hands to do so!

I then tried to dye my marchpane a vibrant red (using gel food colouring so I wasn’t adding too much more liquid!), but my god that stuff is difficult to knead! I just about got to a dark pinky red before I decided it’s not worth spraining my wrists over!

I then rolled out the marchpane between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper to a ½cm thickness. (I did this because my marchpane was oddly oily?! I reckon it was the rosewater I used.) I then cut out a 2 wings using a template I’d drawn up beforehand, and a few triangles of various sizes for the spikes.

I baked the wings on a curve (made with aluminium foil) and the spikes on a small tray at a lower temperature of 150°C for 25 minutes until they were just beginning to colour. I removed from the oven and set aside. Do not touch the fragile things at all until COMPLETELY cooled! I made the mistake of trying to move one and the top point may have broken off…

For the marzipan I pulsed mixed the ground almonds and icing sugar together in a large bowl.

I then added some rosewater…

…and some almond extract.

I then poured in 2 egg whites (which came to 60g) and mixed this together until it came together as a dough. Again, you’ll probably need to knead it with your hands to bring it together.

I then took half of my marzipan and dyed it a dark reddy purple by kneading in the gel food colouring. With the other half, I reserved a small piece in the original colour (for nails and teeth) and dyed the rest dark brown. I kept this covered in cling film to keep from drying out until ready to use.

As an optional extra I then crushed and melted some orange and yellow boiled sweets in a metal cookie cutter lined with baking paper by placing in the hot oven for about 5 minutes. Once melty I used a toothpick to dip 2 sunflower seeds into the orange goop to coat and set aside to harden. This was so my dragon could have glassy amber coloured eyes.

Once the cake had cooled, I levelled off the top then inverted it onto the board I wanted to serve on and brushed the entire surface with apricot jam.

I then rolled out my dark brown marzipan to a large rectangle of ½cm thickness and lifted onto my cake to caver completely, cutting off any excess and sealing all seams.

To make the structure for the dragon I started by melting some unsalted butter in a large saucepan over a very low heat.

I then added mini marshmallows and let to melt slowly until there were no lumps.

I took the marshmallow of the heat and mixed in the coco pops until evenly coated.

I let this cool a little until it was beginning to set and safe to handle with my hands.

I sculpted this using lightly oiled hands into my desired dragon shape. I kept this in the fridge until set. Mine actually kept drooping so I had to keep checking on it! In hindsight I probably could have added some melted chocolate for a much firmer set!

To decorate my coco pops dragon I covered the entire thing with the dark reddy purple marzipan. I flattened out pieces and just moulded it over each section of the dragon until fully covered, and smoothed out the edges. I then used whatever tools I could find to sculpt out the details/features, and added a few little marzipan extras (the horns, nails, teeth, edging on the wings). I also added the ‘eyes’.

Finally, I embellished the dragon and it’s base with edible glitter/dust, and added a few crystallised ginger ‘rocks’ at it’s feet too!

Overall…

How long did it take? If I’m just counting the time I was in the kitchen… 5 hours 10 minutes. Ok, I realise that’s WAAAAAAY over the 3hr30 time limit the bakers were given but this was a very overambitious bake! Plus, being my first and only attempt I was having to wing quite a lot too! Pun intended.

I managed to get the cake in the oven and make the marchpane and marzipan well within in the time frame I’d set myself (1hr30), it was dyeing the marchpane and making the wings that took aaaages! Let me tell you, marchpane is a pain in the backside to knead, let alone roll out to shape (or at least my marchpane was!). I even went to the lengths of making a third wing just incase because I was paranoid one would break!

Being me, I also spent and eternity decorating the darned thing! I wasn’t completely sure how I wanted to decorate it when I started so I was just improvising with the various sweets and edible glitters/dusts I had. I actually spent 1hr40 doing this… so I’m pretty sure I could have cut that down once I had a clue!

What worked? I was a little worried about the ginger cake being too soft and moist and getting squished with the weight of the dragon, but it held. *flexed bicep emoji* I’m also pretty happy with how the dragon turned out.

What didn’t work? The marchpane was very temperamental; one wing started breaking despite seemingly being the more solid of the two?! I also should have processed the almonds and icing sugar because once I’d dyed it you could really see the flecks of ground almonds in the marchpane. Ew. Lastly, I could have added some melted white chocolate to the coco pops mix for a firmer set as mentioned before.

Things to improve if I were to take this recipe to the tent? Practice the marchpane stuff – pefect the recipe, dyeing it, and the shaping/baking of the wings. I also should have made the coco pops dragon structure much earlier so I wasn’t having to wait so long for it to harden in the fridge (I didn’t have space in my freezer!). Finally, DON’T TAKE ALMOST TWO HOURS TO DECORATE THE FRIGGIN’ DRAGON! This wasn’t an art lesson Ang.

*****