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Dessert

Frangipane a LA Concurs

A custard-like pastry filling made with milk, eggs, sugar, corn starch, lemon, butter, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Frangipane a LA Concurs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line an earthen dish with puff paste.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, corn starch, lemon juice and zest, and melted butter.

  3. Once the milk boils, combine it with the egg mixture and stir briskly until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the brandy.

  5. Let the mixture cool, then pour it into the lined dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

  2. Serve hot with wine or brandy sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they coagulate with heat, giving it body and structure.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture when heated, giving the filling a smooth, sliceable texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps keep it tender and soft as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing a softer mouthfeel to the filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens with the eggs and starch.

The step that matters

Combine the hot milk with the egg mixture and stir briskly. Adding hot milk to eggs can scramble them if the mixture is not stirred constantly. Brisk stirring disperses the heat and lets the starch and egg proteins thicken evenly into a smooth custard.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, brandy, sugar, corn, egg, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, brandy, sugar, corn, egg, butter. 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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