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Frangipane
Beat six eggs until light, add to them gradually a pint of new milk and two small spoonfuls of flour. Put the mixture over the fire in a clean saucepan, with a quarter of a pound of fine sugar, and when close at the boiling point and thickish, stir in two ounces of crushed ratafias, a glass of rum or brandy, some grated lemon-rind, and two ounces of butter, browned slightly in a clean pan. This delicious creamy preparation is an excellent substitute for custard. It can be flavoured with vanilla, orange-flower, or coffee, to suit the dish it is wanted for. The French use it to fill tartlets or cover fruit tarts. Probable cost, 1s. 3d. for this quantity, exclusive of spirits.
A pastry cream in all but name, thickened with both egg and a little flour and finished with browned butter. It is richer and looser than modern crème pâtissière, and the almond flavour comes entirely from the crushed biscuits.
- The hinge: browned butter lastThe two ounces of butter are browned slightly in a separate pan and stirred in at the end, along with the ratafias, spirit and lemon-rind, when the mixture is close at boiling point. That nutty butter carries much of the character of the dish; added early it would simply melt into the milk without colour.
- A pintAn imperial pint, 20 fl oz, or about 2½ cups. With six eggs and the other additions this comes to roughly a quart of finished cream.
- Two small spoonfuls of flourGenuinely ambiguous. Two teaspoons would barely register against a pint of milk and six eggs; nearer 2 tablespoons gives a cream that holds its shape in a tartlet, while less leaves you with a pouring custard.
- New milkFresh whole milk, unskimmed and not soured. Skimmed milk will set thinner and taste flat here.
- "Close at the boiling point"With this little flour the mixture is closer to a custard than a pastry cream, and it will scramble if it actually boils. Cook it over gentle heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens and coats the spoon — around 180F/82C. If you use the fuller 2 tablespoons of flour it can take a brief bubble, which cooks out the starch taste.
- RatafiasSmall, hard, bitter-almond macaroons, now largely gone from British shops. Crushed amaretti are the closest thing.
- Fine sugar and a glass of spiritsFine sugar means caster. The recipe specifies only "a glass"; a wineglass of the period is conventionally reckoned at about 2 fl oz of rum or brandy — enough to loosen the cream slightly, so allow for that if you want a stiff filling.
- The alternative flavouringsOrange-flower water is potent; a teaspoon in this quantity is plenty. For coffee, dissolve strong coffee or extract in a little of the milk rather than adding liquid at the end.
- KeepingPress cling film onto the surface and chill; use within two days. It is an egg-and-milk cream and should not sit at room temperature.
Frangipane in English usage covers two related things: the almond-and-butter filling baked into a tart, and this — crème frangipane, a pastry cream flavoured with crushed almond macaroons. The name is generally traced to the Frangipani, a Roman noble family, and to a bitter-almond perfume said to have been fashionable for scenting gloves in sixteenth-century Paris; the story is traditional rather than documented, but the association of the name with almond scent is old and consistent. Cassell's treats it as a base preparation rather than a finished dish, and the note that it is "an excellent substitute for custard" tells you how a late-Victorian English kitchen filed it: a French refinement on something the cook already made weekly. The costing of 1s. 3d. is given as excluding spirits.