Almond Paste

Instructions

1. For a single dish of pastry, blanch seven ounces of fine Jordan almonds and one of bitter; throw them into cold water as they are done, and let them remain in it for an hour or two.
2. Then wipe, and pound them to the finest paste, moistening them occasionally with a few drops of cold water, to prevent their oiling.
3. Next, add to, and mix thoroughly with them, seven ounces of highly-refined, dried, and sifted sugar.
4. Put them into a small preserving-pan, or enamelled stewpan, and stir them over a clear and very gentle fire until they are so dry as not to adhere to the finger when touched.
5. Turn the paste immediately into an earthen pan or jar, and when cold it will be ready for use.
6. Proportions: Jordan almonds, 7 oz.; bitter almonds, 1 oz.; cold water, 1 tablespoonful; sugar, 7 oz.
7. Note: when the bitter almonds are objected to, use half a pound of the sweet almonds.
8. Note: the pan in which the paste is dried should by no means be placed upon the fire, but high above it on a bar or trevet: should it be allowed by accident to harden too much, it must be sprinkled plentifully with water, broken up quite small, and worked, as it warms, with a strong wooden spoon to a smooth paste again. We have found this method perfectly successful; but, if time will permit, it should be moistened some hours before it is again set over the fire.