Frangipane

Frangipane. That is a really, really great word. It's one of those words where, the more often you repeat it, the weirder it sounds. For a while I've known it's a type of sweet tart, but it wasn't until seeing it made on a foodie TV programme that I finally clocked what went into it. Problem, of course, with TV programmes is that even if they 'fess up and tell you how long it really makes to produce one of these creations, and that's if you know what you're doing, it doesn't feel like it takes that long because of course they've edited out loads. Like, the bit where you put the dough in the fridge to prove for two hours and you go off shopping or you sit in front of the telly with a cup of tea and a doughnut, or you do the ironing or text people or check your FB page, as this would all make for really boring telly. Consequently, they tell you it takes four hours, you think duh! You made it in 15 minutes!! Then you go off and have a go and two hours later you're kneading dough for its second prove and regretting, bitterly, that you didn't just go for the choc chip cookies which take 15 minutes from start to finish. So. Here I am in the evolutionary process of creating my raspberry, lemon and almond frangipane tart. It's not going to take me four hours to make. It's going to be more like twenty four hours. My dough for the tart is in the fridge, where it needs a minimum of two hours to rest but the recipe tells me helpfully, that an overnight residence in the depths of my fridge is more likely to produce the crust I need so I have decided to take this advice at face value. My lemon creme patissiere needs to be watched like a hawk to ensure it does not form a skin - I love custard skin myself, I used to sneak a skim off the top of the Birds Eye custard my Mum used to make when her back was turned (though it was the solidifying type of custard so I'm guessing that she clocked the oval indent in the side of the bowl, put two and two together with ease but was just too nice a person to let on) but you can't have a skin on your creme pat (this is the jargon of foodie professionals) if you want a perfect frangipane. After a few hours of this, I become slightly mesmerised by it. My brain slips into alchemy mode. Making a creme pat takes serious concentration if you want to hold the flavours right and get the consistency perfect so that you can like your jam across the top. And concentration is good for anyone who has had a tough week. And mine has been a tough one. Still in the early days of a new job, in that horrible bit where everyone around you knows more than you do, including the security guard (because he knows where all the bogs are and I'm yet to discover them), and the sheer  volume of information is overwhelming etc etc and you go home most days wondering whether this was all a terrible mistake. Of course it isn't, and in a few weeks I'll be climbing back up the hill of mental satisfaction which comes of saying something awfully clever in a meeting and clocking that I might have got with the programme. In the meantime, baking is a salvation. You can produce a beautiful frangipane even if you don't know where the toilets are on the 5th floor of your building and this is immensely confidence restoring. It's just lucky I'm not producing this frangipane for a TV baking competition. There'd be an awful lot of editing tape on the floor.