Is a pastry cream or crème pâtisserie used to fill various pastries, as a base or filling in tarts, in cakes, and in sweetened breads, such as almond filled croissant and in traditional French King Cake. Frangipane is made of a paste of ground almonds, butter, sugar, eggs, and liqueur. Flour and various other extracts, liquids, and differing proportions are used to achieve variations in texture and flavor. Generally, however, the ingredients in a basic recipe are at equal weights.
Frangipane or frangipani is also used in
Italian pastries and it may be it originated with a generous family, who, when
a famine struck in the late middle ages, gave bread and foods to the poor and
thence forward, the family name was changed to “Frangipani” from the Italian, “frangere il pane,” meaning,
“bread-breakers.” Continuing in the
spirit of giving, one lady of this family ministered to the poor and became a
devoted benefactress to St. Francis Assisi.
When on his deathbed, he called for her, she brought him a sweet pastry made
with almonds, which afterwards bore the family name. Another story suggests the name comes from
the inventer of the celebrated almond-scented gloves made for Louis XIII, the Marquis Muzio Frangipani.
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