Les Poissonchats

It is strawberries the youngest daughter asks for when her father wonders what he should bring back from his business trip. Naturally, it is the dead of winter, and there are no strawberries in mid-winter – except, of course, in the enchanted garden of the enchanted Beast. One thing leads inevitably to another, and the daughter ends up… well, not exactly married to him, but spending her days in his lonely castle. Not unhappily, mind you, though the Beast roars and blusters and behaves like a grumpy old hog.

But grumpiness, it turns out, is only sadness in a heavier coat. And when he is finally about to die of that sadness, her heart opens to him at last. The love that blossoms there – like those impossible winter strawberries – breaks the spell and restores him to what he truly was all along: a prince.

Morale? Never ask for strawberries in winter unless you are prepared to turn a beast back into a prince. 

Hence I took a shortcut and made marzipan strawberries, here’s the how to:

What you’ll need

• A stick of good quality marzipan
• Red and green edible colorant
• Sugar

How you make them

Mix the biggest part of the marzipan with a little red food colorant so you get a pinkish mass. The smaller part is for the stems, mix it with the green colorant. Then take a walnut sized piece of marzipan and shape into a strawberry. Make different sizes of strawberries.

Add the rest of the red colorant in a shallow bowl and add strawberry after strawberry, gently swinging the bowl so the strawberry gets red coloured on all sides.

Take a tiny piece of the green marzipan and shape into a leafy stem, gently put on the strawberries. Let dry for maybe half an hour.

Roll the strawberries in sugar, arrange on a nice little dish and serve.

*This is Les Poissonchats Wondrous Advent Calendar! Advent calendars are a big tradition where I come from: every day until Christmas Day you prepare a small gift for a loved one, fourandtwenty little surprises. Advent calendars come in beautifully old fashioned prints on cardboard, extra glitter and glory, and each day there’s a little perforated window waiting for you be opened. Others are more elaborate, pretty baskets filled with twenty four numbered parcels, red velvet ribbons and sprigs of fir. The one I’m making for you this season is a different one altogether, it comes in digital form. Unless specially marked, all content is hand-stitched by myself, lovingly compiled and written for your amusement.