Frangipan

A cream called frangipan is a nut mass or nut cream based on a large amount of ground almonds, powdered sugar or granulated sugar, eggs, butter, rum and vanilla. However, the main and essential ingredient of frangipan is almonds, while otherwise changes in both availability and their proportions are quite permissible.

According to one assumption, this almond cream owes its name to the surname Frangipani. It is one of the most glorious and powerful dynasties of the Italian Middle Ages. Interestingly, in a literal translation, this surname means "prelie bread" - for example, their family coat of arms is decorated with broken bread.

To date, frangipan is widely in demand in cooking. For example, without this cream, it is difficult to imagine a classic French Bourdaloue pie with pears. In addition, tartlets are filled with frangipan, and also used as a filling for croissants and cakes.

In fact, the culinary technique of making frangipan is not complicated, because in essence it is a mixture of an equal amount of almond and custard pastry creams. By the way, in modern cookbooks, frangipan often means almond cream itself.

For industrial use, this cream is available in large bags in the form of a powder blank. That is why it is enough to dilute this powder with water and oil to prepare frangipan.

However, almond cream, and frangipan based on it, can be easily made at home. So, for this, sugar, softened butter, finely ground peeled almond nut kernels and eggs are mixed in equal proportions.

Cooked frangipan can be used as a filling in open pies and baked along with fruit and dough. It is worth saying: in order for frangipan to rise beautifully in the process of baking and remain the same lush after removing the pie, experienced culinary experts recommend not to beat butter into foam, but only to rub it until soft.

By the way, you should not expect a very rich almond smell from frangipan - dark rum, almond essence or vanilla is added to enhance it. In addition, you can slightly enhance the aroma of the cream by pre-drying almond flour in a dry pan or add a couple of hot almond kernels.

In culinary affairs, in addition to frangipan cream, there is also frangipan puree, which is usually used as a binder in dishes made of ground fish and poultry. This is a rather thick cream, which consists of butter, milk, flour and eggs, while there is absolutely no almonds in this mixture.