Friday, July the 29th, 2011

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Marzipan Wolf

A life-size marzipan wolf makes a splendid teatime treat at gatherings of the extended family. For smaller kinship grouplets, it can be portioned up and served piecemeal after supper over several days, or even weeks, depending on the portion sizes.

The first thing to do is to commandeer the kitchen, together with any adjacent pantries, larders and icehouses. If you employ skivvies, drive them out, with a broom if necessary. They can busy themselves awhile in an outbuilding or annexe, or you can just dismiss them, with or without character references. Bear in mind, however, that when you have finished making your life-size marzipan wolf you will probably want the skivvies back in the kitchen, toiling through all the hours God sends, so whatever you decide to do, treat them with kindness, or at least what passes for kindness in your bleak forbidding grim authoritarian household.

Next, acquire a large glob of marzipan. It should be at least the size, if not the shape, of an average adult wolf. If you are not sure what that is, make study of wolves, for example by combing through reference books, preferably illustrated, by watching informative documentary films at the local fleapit, or by stalking the heaths and moors at dead of night. Remember that in moonlight it can be difficult to judge distance, so get as close to any pack of heath or moorland wolves as you possibly can. Wear dark clothing and night-vision goggles, if they are available in your neck of the woods.

Once you are alone in your kitchen with a wolf-size glob of marzipan on the countertop, you can proceed to mould it into the shape of a wolf. The basic idea is to go for absolute verisimilitude, so that the members of your extended family or smaller kinship grouplet do a double-take.

“My oh my! What on earth is a wolf doing, sitting there without a care in the world on an enormous cake-stand in the middle of the dining table?” they will exclaim, before blinking a couple of times and adding, “Oh! Silly me! Look, it is all yellow and made out of marzipan!”

It can be a very tricky effect to pull off successfully, especially if you are cack-handed. Nor should you even begin the project if you are suffering from delirium tremens or from any other condition which causes you to shake uncontrollably, such as having recently spent five hours atop a vibrating platform or watched a terrifying non-documentary film about spooks and ghosties and monsters at the local fleapit.

Steady-handed, then, mould the marzipan accordingly, and place it on the aforementioned enormous cake-stand in the middle of your dining table. You are now ready to throw open the doors of the dining room and beckon your extended family or smaller kinship grouplet, who will be lounging around in the parlour glugging sherry and exchanging anecdotes, or, if puritanical, as they probably are given the bleak forbidding grim authoritarian nature of your household, sipping from tumblers of tap water and frowning in silence.

Bon appetit!