Now, though there may be a photo of a beautiful plum tart
here, this article is really to showcase a trade secret I learnt on the first
day of my part-time Patisserie course in Leeds (more posts on that to follow!).
And that trade secret is a little thing called almond cream. In my previous
ignorance, I’ve called almond cream a frangipane but was pulled up pretty quick
on this by my tutor Fabrice, who sighed very loudly when I described the recipe
in front of us as such. Apparently, a frangipane has twenty per cent crème patissière stirred into it. This
means that every recipe I’ve made in the past that’s called its filling a frangipane
has been downright lying to me. The cheek! Once I’d overcome this revelation,
in class we set about making the stuff. And boy is it good. Soft, sweet, moist
and dense. What’s not to like?
