Marzipankartoffeln

In my grandmother Eva's kitchen in Deal, a tin of Marzipankartoffeln appeared on the first of December and was empty by the fifth. Every year. Gretel always said that the sign of a good Keksdose was that the Marzipankartoffeln vanished first, before anyone touched the Vanillekipferl or the Linzer Augen. She was right. They're the thing your hand reaches for without asking your brain.

They look like tiny potatoes. That's the whole joke, and it never stops being charming. You take good marzipan, knead it soft, roll it into small lumpy shapes, and dust them in cocoa powder so they look like they just came out of the earth. Some people poke little indentations with a toothpick to mimic the eyes of a real potato. Gretel did this. My grandmother thought it was unnecessary fussing. I do it anyway because it made Gretel smile.

The secret is the marzipan itself. If you start with good Rohmarzipan, the kind with a high almond content and not too much sugar, you barely need to do anything to it. A splash of rum, a little powdered sugar to make it workable, and your hands. That's it. No oven, no thermometer, no technique more complicated than rolling a ball between your palms. This is the recipe I give to people who say they can't make Christmas sweets. Twenty minutes later they have a plate of perfect little potatoes and the confidence to try something harder next.