Marzipan substitutes

This is not a substitute, it is the actual recipe, and it takes five minutes in a food processor with no cooking. Pulse the almond flour and powdered sugar together, add the binder and extract, and process until it clumps, then knead it smooth on a surface dusted with powdered sugar. It tastes and handles like the bought stuff. The only difference is that commercial marzipan is milled finer, so a homemade batch is very slightly sandy rather than glass-smooth.

Best for

covering Christmas and simnel cakes, moulding into shapes and mazapan sweets, stollen and pastry fillings, rolling into a layer inside cakes

Use blanched almond flour, not almond meal with the skins in, or the marzipan will be beige and speckled. If it is sticky, add powdered sugar a tablespoon at a time; if it crumbles, add a teaspoon of water or corn syrup. Corn syrup instead of egg white makes it egg-free and keeps longer. Wrap tightly - it dries out and cracks within hours if left uncovered.

Almond paste and marzipan are constantly confused but they are different by design. Almond paste is roughly half almonds by weight, coarser, softer, tacky, and only mildly sweet, made to be a filling that stays moist. Marzipan is roughly a quarter almonds and much more sugar, so it is firmer, sweeter, smoother and can be rolled thin without tearing. Used straight from the tube in place of marzipan, almond paste will be too soft to roll and will taste noticeably less sweet and more strongly of almond.

Best for

covering cakes once stiffened, moulded shapes, cake and pastry fillings, cookies and bars

Knead the powdered sugar in a bit at a time until the paste stops sticking to your hands and holds a crease. Add powdered sugar generously - most people underdo it and end up with something that sags off the cake. Going the other way also works: to make almond paste from marzipan, knead in extra almond flour and cut the sweetness with a squeeze of lemon.

The right tool for the structural job and the wrong one for flavour. Fondant rolls thinner, more evenly and more forgivingly than marzipan and gives a smoother finish on a cake. But it is pure sugar with no nuts, so it tastes flatly sweet with none of marzipan's rich, faintly bitter almond depth, and it has a slick, slightly rubbery bite rather than a soft crumbly one. Kneading in almond extract fakes the aroma reasonably well.

Best for

covering fruit cakes and celebration cakes, moulded decorations, when nut allergies are a concern

This is genuinely the best option for a nut-free household, and the almond extract trick makes it read as almond to most people. Note that almond extract itself is usually nut-free, being made from bitter almond oil or synthetic benzaldehyde, but check the label if the allergy is serious. Fondant does not seal a fruit cake against moisture as well as marzipan, so brush the cake with warmed apricot jam first.

For genuine nut allergies where you still want something with body rather than pure fondant. Ground sunflower seeds give the closest texture to ground almonds and a mild nutty flavour, though the result is greyer-green and slightly earthier. Semolina versions, used in some traditional Mediterranean sweets, need to be cooked briefly with sugar syrup and come out grainier and less rich but genuinely pliable and mouldable.

Best for

nut-free cake covering, moulded sweets, pastry fillings

Grind sunflower seeds in short pulses and stop before they turn to butter - over-processing releases their oil and you get a paste that will not hold. Toasting the seeds first improves the flavour markedly but darkens the colour further. Add a drop of lemon juice to brighten the flavour, which tends towards flat without it.

Only relevant when marzipan is being used inside something baked, as in a bakewell tart, a stollen or a filled pastry. Frangipane is ground almonds, butter, sugar and egg, and it bakes into a soft, cakey, moist layer rather than staying as a dense chewy ribbon. The flavour is very close - rich almond and sugar - but the eating experience changes completely: soft and spongy instead of firm and slightly chewy.

Best for

bakewell tarts and almond tarts, filled danishes and croissants, layered cakes, fruit tarts

Do not use this for anything that needs to be rolled, moulded or used as a cake covering - frangipane is a loose batter, not a dough. Because it contains egg and butter it must be baked, so it is no use in a no-bake application. Reduce the sugar elsewhere in the recipe, as frangipane is less sweet than marzipan by volume.

The honest fallback for a fruit cake when you have no marzipan and no time. The jam seals the cake and stops the icing soaking in, which is one of marzipan's real functions, and the pressed almonds give a suggestion of almond flavour and a little texture. What you lose is the thick, sweet, chewy almond layer that many people consider the best part of a Christmas or simnel cake.

Best for

fruit cakes and Christmas cakes, when only the sealing function matters, quick fixes

Warm the jam and push it through a sieve so it brushes on smoothly. This will not give you the flat, even surface that a marzipan layer creates for icing on top, so expect a rustic finish. Skip this entirely for a simnel cake, where the marzipan layer and the eleven marzipan balls on top are the defining features of the cake.