It has been a lovely sunny day in the Walled Garden and the almond tree in one of the glass houses is in full bloom. We bought it as a tiny whip in Barcelona 13 years ago and now we have achieved my ambition, to grow enough almonds to make enough marzipan for my Simnel cake. I make the marzipan from equal quantities of almond and sugar. Grinding the almonds to a fine powder first, make sure they don’t get too wet, or oily. With commercial almonds you will need a drop or two of almond essence to get a proper flavour. I use Demerara, because I love marzipan slightly grainy and it is way better than bought marzipan. There is no comparison really………………