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Dessert

Frangipani Cream Patties

A pastry shell filled with a cream of cream, flour, orange flower water, brandy or sherry, egg yolks, macaroons, sugar, lemon peel, and candied fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Frangipani Cream Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shells

  1. Prepare the pastry shells and remove the center piece to create a cover.

  2. Scoop out the soft inside, leaving ½ inch of crust.

Make the filling

  1. In a small saucepan, combine cream, flour, orange flower water, and brandy or sherry.

  2. Boil until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan; add more cream or milk if too thick.

  3. Beat in the egg yolks, crumbled macaroons, sugar, lemon peel, and chopped candied fruit.

  4. Set the saucepan in boiling water and stir until very thick.

  5. Let cool before using. Store in jars covered with buttered paper.

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. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, custard-like body.
Macaroons
Add almond flavor and body to the filling, soaking up liquid as they are stirred in.
Flour
Stabilizes the cream mixture so it thickens and holds its shape when boiled.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the bitterness of the candied fruit and peel.
Cream
Provides richness and moisture, forming the base of the thickened filling.

The step that matters

Set the saucepan in boiling water and stir until very thick. Egg yolks thicken and can curdle or scramble if heated too fast. Gentle, indirect heat from a water bath, with constant stirring, lets the custard thicken smoothly.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, orange, brandy, egg, sugar, lemon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, orange, brandy, egg, sugar, 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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