Scarily green mock marzipan
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds, ground to powder (blender, food processor, coffee grinder, pestle and mortar...)
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 tsp egg white- whisk slightly just to break down the structure and make it possible to measure, not to add air
couple of drops vanilla extract
a few drops, up to 1/8 tsp or so, almond essence, added dropwise till it tastes right (then add a wee bit more unless it's being used that minute.)
Mix, knead, taste for quantity of almond essence, reknead if you add more.
Makes enough for a half-recipe of stollen plus a few small nibbles. To cover a cake you'd need maybe three times this. Adapted from a recipe for marzipan that used twice as much sugar.
Leftover eggwhite can be used in royal icing. Yolk can enrich the mashed sweet potato. Or mix them back together and scramble. Or whatever.
(This recipe relies on almond essence being utterly devoid of any connection to almonds. Almond
extract is actually extracted from the real thing, so avoid it.
Sunflower seeds would probably work too, and would be less lurid. Poppy seeds have too strong a taste. Dunno about sesame seeds, they might be too oily.
For vegans or non-raw-egg eaters- um dunno. Some agar? Possibly just a bit of water and a bit of bland veg oil? It doesn't have to hold together if it's being baked in the middle of a stollen, after all.)