Marzipan Strawberry Pie

During the great flood of 2017, Bow and I felt very cooped up. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do, and we got a little tired of the same music and the same sights and sounds. But luckily we had at home the makings of marzipan strawberry pie. Miniature marzipan strawberry pie, that is.

The Finished Product

My mother and I had been talking about marzipan lately. It is one of my favorite sweets. During my childhood, when we didn't have  chocolate doled out as a special treat, we got marzipan. It is one of my favorites and evokes good memories. But here in the U.S., you can't find marzipan along with chocolate in the candy aisle at WalMart. "I haven't seen it in years," I said to my mother. "Maybe they call it something else."

And then one day I found it, in the baking section, on a very high shelf next to the poppy seed filling. Sure enough, it was not called marzipan. It was just plain old "almond paste."  That made it sound very unromantic, I must say. Can it possibly taste the same if you call it almond paste?

In addition to the almonds, sugar is the major ingredient, That's why when I was a little girl, it was doled out after a meal in very small doses, just like chocolate.

Americans, apparently, don't indulge in marzipan as a sweet, but they use almond paste -- which looks and tastes exactly the same -- in baking macaroons and other pastries . For Bow, during those rainy days, I decided to use ready made graham cracker pie crusts and strawberries to add more substance to the marzipan.

The marzipan can be made into any shape 

I always have fresh strawberries on hand.

I just cut them into small bits and added them on top of the marzipan. Marzipan is sticky, so they were firmly in place.

Now all I had to do was serve this confection to Bow. He was happy. He did not care at all whether it was called marzipan or almond paste. It was all the same to him.