My husband is a marzipan fiend and so when we travel to Toledo I want to make sure he gets to taste, and buy, some of the really "good stuff". Anyone know where I should go for some real quality marzipan and a real "experience"? Many thanks in advance!!

I adore mazapan!

I have some details in my report from a couple of years back; Toledo is the first stop:



http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...nd-segovia.cfm

In case you do not want to wade through the report, the shop is Santo Tome, with a branch near the Plaza Zocodover and another, also in the historic area.

James Michener has a good section about this delicacy in the Toledo section of his book, IBERIA.

Santo Tome website:

http://www.mazapan.com/

ekscrunchy - thanks a bunch for all that info. Yum.......

Flame: I never had an interest in marzipan, even after seeing it innumerable bakeries in Italy over the years. But one taste of that Santo Tome delicacy hooked me for life! I hate to say that I ate a LOT of it. Thanks goodness I can't get it (the good stuff) here or I would have a real battle on my hands. Or on my hips!

Yes, the really good stuff is at Santo Tome.

Having made many mistakes in not bringing back enough goodies, I bought a sample of mazapan while walking through the historic area even though I had little interest in mazapan. Once I realized just good it tasted, having delicate taste and not too sweet, the last thing I did before leaving Toledo was to buy as many mazapan boxes as I thought I could cram into my luggage. The marzipan I have tried in the U.S. were too sweet, too bland, and too big.

This is another example of why people want to try a food in Europe even though they might have eaten a poor imitation in the U.S.

The mazapan, unfortunately, was perishable, so I "had" to eat them quickly as soon I got home!!

Oh, Greg: You should have let me know. I could have helped!

Can you get good mazapan in Barcelona too? Or is it a Toledo thing?

Thanks!

Agree with ekscrunchy, Santo Tomé's marzipan is great: "Delicias" and "Anguilas" (eel-shaped marzipan).
http://www.mazapan.com/mazapan/catal.htm

Try also another kind of marzipan from Andalusia: Pan de Cádiz. Cadiz bread, is marzipan rich with layers of sweetened egg yolk and sweetened yams.
http://www.turronesprimitivo.com/catalogo4.html

greg - in previous travels, when buying "perishables" and buying a LOT of them, I have found that while it is not as great as fresh, freezing some of them for a later "remember-how-great-it-was" moment was not too bad. For your future reference...... I too tend to find something special abroad and then fill up the suitcase with as many as possible.

Revulgo - thanks for those pictures too!!! And Pan de Cadiz is something I never even heard of. Wow. Is it available only in Andalucia?

CAPH52 - Mazapan (is that how you say it in Spanish?) is indeed a Toledo thing - as in, Toledo is quite famous for it.

Hi Flame,
When you and your husband take your day trip to Segovia, be sure to try the local dessert speciality, "ponche segoviano", a delicious sponge cake bathed and coated in marzipan! There are two rival pastry shops that both claim to produce the city's "best"-

Limón y Menta on Calle Infanta Isabel 2 (the pedestrian street that takes you from the aqueduct up to the Plaza Mayor)

Confitería El Alcázar, on the Plaza Mayor, 13

One more question - since so many people recommend the Santo Tome mazapan - is this a "tourist" store or a real Toledo-people type store?

Maribel - OH MY GOD !!!!! Sounds too fabulous!!! Thanks!! (and now my waistline will NOT thank you afterwards!! LOL).

Thank you, Flame!

No, it is not a tourist store. It is upscale, with a reputation that would draw people from all over.

I find it fun to buy at the cloistered convents . The nuns place your order in a revolving tunstile, and you see no one. I think the Convent of Jesus and Maria sells homemade sweets, as probably does another. The tourist office or hotel should know where these are.

Cloisterd nuns all over Spain make sweets. There are convents in Sevila, Alcalá de Henares and even Madrid, I am told that sell to the public. Now that is an experience!

In Madrid, the nuns of the Convento del Corpus Christi (Las Carboneras) still sell their wares at the entrance on Calle del Codo, around the corner from the Plazuela del Conde de Miranda.

http://www.gomadrid.com/shopping/Con...us-Cristi.html

There is an ancient protocol to buy sweets through a "lazy susan" of a nuns convent, the greeting is:
Buyer: Ave María Purísima (Hail purest Mary!)
Nun's voice: Sin pecado concebida (Conceived without sin)
But the last time I bought marzipan in a nuns convent the scene was:
Revulgo: Ave María Purísima (Hail purest Mary!)
Young nun voice: Qué hay? (What's up?)
I felt ridiculously old-fashioned.

LOL, Revulgo,
I'll remember that the next time I buy sweets from the nuns!