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Frangipane
(Italy.) This is another custard, old and good. Beat 6 eggs very light, add 1 pint milk and 2 spoonfuls of flour. Cook it with 1/4 pound sugar, stirring until thick, add 2 ounces of crushed macaroons, and a glass of brandy or rum, the grated rind of a lemon, and 2 ounces butter. Cook in a pan of water; when smooth add a spoonful of vanilla. Serve cold, in cups, or use to fill little tarts.
This is a pastry cream, thickened with egg and a little flour and enriched with crushed almond macaroons. Everything depends on keeping it below a simmer.
- The hinge: gentle heat"Cook in a pan of water" means a bain-marie; the recipe applies it to the later stage, but the whole custard is safer made that way. Six eggs to a pint of milk sets firmly; take it off the heat once it coats the spoon thickly, around 175-180F, and keep it well below a boil.
- Order of operationsAs written the instructions run out of sequence. Whisk the eggs, flour and sugar smooth, temper in the warmed milk, then cook over water until thick before adding the macaroons, butter, lemon rind and spirit. Vanilla goes in last, off the heat, so it does not cook away.
- SpoonfulsA "spoonful" of flour in a book of this kind most likely means a tablespoon, so two tablespoons for a pint of milk. The "spoonful of vanilla" is unlikely to mean a tablespoon of modern extract; 1 to 2 teaspoons is probably right.
- A glass of brandyRecipe glasses of this period run from a wine glass (about 2 fl oz) to a tumbler. Two fluid ounces is plenty here; more will thin the custard and dominate the almond.
- MacaroonsThese are almond macaroons, of the amaretti type, not the coconut macaroons or French macaron sandwiches the word now suggests. Two ounces crushed to crumbs; they thicken as well as flavour, so weigh rather than guess.
- Milk and butterIf the book is American, a pint means 16 fl oz. Whole milk gives the right body; the 2 oz butter can be cut in cold, a piece at a time, after the custard leaves the heat.
- Yield and servingRoughly 4 cups once the eggs, sugar, butter and spirit are counted in, enough for six small cups or a couple of dozen tartlet shells. Press plastic wrap directly on the surface while it cools to stop a skin forming, and use within two days.
- In tartsThe custard is fully cooked, so bake the shells blind and fill them cold. Filled shells soften within a few hours, which is why they are best assembled close to serving.
Frangipane is often said to derive from the Frangipani, a Roman noble family, and the almond-scented perfume associated with their name in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though this is traditional lore rather than documented fact; the pastry sense followed, and by the nineteenth century French kitchens used crème frangipane to mean pastry cream lightened with almond. This version keeps the older, looser identity: it is a custard rather than the frangipane filling of a modern almond tart, and the almond arrives secondhand, as crushed macaroons, a standard component of classical crème frangipane. It appears here under the heading "(Italy.)"