Frangipane

For other uses, see Frangipani (disambiguation).

Chocolate tart with frangipane filling in center

Peach frangipane tart

Frangipane is a filling made from or flavored like almonds. This filling can be used in a variety of ways including cakes, tarts and other assorted pastries, such as the Jesuite. An alternative French spelling from a 1674 cookbook is franchipane with the earliest modern spelling coming from a 1732 confectioners' dictionary. Originally designated as a custard tart flavored by almonds or pistachios it came later to designate a filling that could be used in a variety of confections and baked goods.

These days it is normally made of butter, sugar, eggs, and ground almonds: beat butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, gradually beat in the eggs, fold in the ground almonds.

In some anecdotes this is a kind of sweet a noblewoman Jacopa da Settesoli brought to St. Francis of Assisi, when he was dying in 1226.

Etymology

Frangipane/frangipani is derived from frangere il pane (Italian for "break the bread"), from which the noble Frangipani family of Rome derived their name in the 11th century. A certain Frangipane was perfumer to Louis XIII of France, hence the common name of the flowering tropical trees that are actually in the genus Plumeria.

Other uses

Frangipane can also refer to:

• A Belgian almond pastry tart.

  Usually the individual cakes have a striped pattern on top, occasionally with icing (resembling a hot cross bun from above).

• The frangipane (frangipani, Plumeria) tree as in John Vanderslice's song Kookaburra

References

• "Frangipane." Oxford Companion to Food (1999), 316.