What Is Frangipane and Why Do Bakers Love It So Much?

Frangipane pastries sound elegant, fancy, and super-hard to make. Named after a tropical flower, frangipane is one of the simplest and most useful recipes in a baker's repertoire, not to mention it's easy to make. Once you learn how to make it, you'll want to bake this rustic French Sour-Cherry Frangipane Tart. Read on for tips on making and using frangipane in many of your most delicious desserts.

What Is Frangipane?

Frangipane is a sweet almond filling, sometimes called frangipane cream. It is a mixture of butter, eggs, ground almonds, sugar, and usually a small amount of flour. Making frangipane is more like making a simple cookie batter. Traditionally, the butter is creamed with sugar until fluffy before mixing in the remaining ingredients, and if you start with soft butter, it's a cinch. Each recipe that uses frangipane has a slightly different recipe for the cream.

How to Use Frangipane

Frangipane is quite a versatile cream. Here are the many ways to use it:

• Pair frangipane when baking with stone fruits such as apricots, plums, and cherries.
• Add a liqueur to the frangipane recipe for flavor. This option works well when baking with autumn fruits, such as pears.
• Use frangipane as the main component of galette des rois or king's cake and almond cream-filled Pithiviers, which is another spectacular traditional French dessert.
• Place frangipane between two discs of puff pastry, then score the top so it looks like a flower.
• Fill other types of delicate pastries with frangipane cream.
• Make an indulgent brunch dish, called Bostock, with frangipane. The cream is spread on top of syrupy French toast and sprinkled with sliced almonds before baking, forming a delicious, caramelized top.