Marzipan-Filled Brownies because why not?

N. B. If you want to win a cookbook handmade by me, be sure to enter the recipe contest!

You know how when you're looking for one thing, you find five other things you forgot you had?

According to the top of the box, they shipped almonds from California to Denmark to make this, and then shipped the whole thing back across the Atlantic. Does anyone else think that seems a bit excessive?

While one might have just eaten the marzipan right out of the box (don't judge me), we decided to put this to higher use: put it in the middle of an already-delicious brownie recipe.

Marzipan-Filled Brownies ½ c butter (or margarine) 1 c sugar 1 egg 1 c flour ¼ c cocoa powder 1 (7-oz) box marzipan Heat oven to 350°. Grease a square or round pan. Melt the butter. Stir in the sugar. Add the egg and beat thoroughly. Add the cocoa powder, beating out any lumps. Finally, stir in the flour just until mixed. Roll the marzipan out to the size of the pan. Spread a little less than half the batter into the pan (I find it easiest to pat it out with my hands). Since it's a bit trickier to spread it on top of the marzipan, you'll want a little more batter to make it easier. Lay the marzipan on top of the batter. Trim away any that goes up the sides of the pan, and use the pieces to patch any places where it doesn't quite reach the edge. Don't bother trying to press any patches onto the rest of the marzipan- just lay them on top of the batter and they'll be fine. Spread the rest of the batter over the marzipan, taking care not to press down to hard lest you squish out the batter from underneath.  Bake 13-20 minutes*. A knife, toothpick, spoon handle, or whatever you're using should come out of the center with no liquid batter on it. If little clumps of brownie cling to it but there's nothing runny on it, they're done even though it didn't come out clean. *That's the time in the original recipe, though for some reason these took 40 minutes.

My marzipan opener was upstairs.

In case anyone else finds beige almond sausage entertaining, behold!

We at A Book of Cookrye would like to think these are somewhat healthy. They contain almonds which keep popping up in health-food articles as being the latest greatest thing ever. Since chocolate prevents rusting (or whatever the hell an antioxidant is supposed to do) and almonds seem to get declared "superfoods" by at least a few bobbleheads, these brownies will be so good for you that even people who eat like this would approve.

I refuse to believe she really eats like that. Her hair's not falling out.

I do like how these are simultaneously fancy but also really quick to put together. Plus, once they're in the oven, you can eat marzipan scraps and brownie batter.

When they're hot, you can't tell they have marzipan in them. You can tell there's almond something in there, but you may as well have just dumped almond extract into the batter (which is good, but controversial among people who have set brownie expectations). But when they cooled down, you could tell they were layered and it was really good.
Contrary to photographic evidence, these came out really pretty. The out-of-focus one floating on the void of a styrofoam plate doesn't do them justice.