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Dessert

Pate a LA Frangipane

A tart filling made from ground almonds, beef marrow, sugar, and cream, dusted with sugar and optionally flavored with orange‑flower water and preserved lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pate a LA Frangipane

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the ground almonds, softened beef marrow, and sifted sugar.

  2. Pound the mixture until well combined.

  3. Add the cream and mix until smooth.

Fill and finish

  1. Fill your tart shells with the mixture.

  2. Dust a little sugar over the top.

  3. For variation, add orange‑flower water while pounding and include preserved lemon‑peel slices.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavour of the filling.
Beef marrow
Adds richness and moisture, giving the filling a soft, smooth body.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give the top a light finish.
Cream
Adds moisture so the mixture blends into a smooth, spreadable filling.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture until well combined. Thorough working blends the ground almonds, fat and sugar evenly; uneven mixing leaves greasy pockets or a grainy texture in the baked filling.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, beef, sugar, cream, lemon):

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, beef, sugar, cream, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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