It's that time again, fall fruits.......

[shroomgirl]

Paste has sugar...I either make frangipane from grinding almonds with sugar and egg whites or almond paste with less sugar and eggs.....I like them both....
what do you glaze with? I use apricot jelly
(jam that's been seived)

[Isa]

Shroomgirl,

Thank you for the information. I always make my frangipane with ground almonds. It seems a lot simpler to me. One thing I noticed is that the store bought ground almonds, in my area, are not ground finely enough. You need to process them before using or your tart will have a grainy texture.

I also use strain apricot jam to glaze the pie. I saw some apricot glaze at the store but it had so many artificial sweeteners and preservatives that I decided to stick with the strained jam.

Sisi

Thanks again everyone.

Ill use frangipane tarts as a backup plan. Gosh, I had better get cracking on the practice for the party! I still have the New Years Eve Party and the "Presidents Ball" in January. Sigh

Hopefully I will convince the owners to hire me some help. I figure the more I impress them the more demands I can make. That's why I want a spectacular presentation at the Christmas party.

I will definately try it with the orange zest. (yummmm)

Speaking of almond paste and frangipane:

The recipe that I have always liked best is actually a very simple one. For my fancy petit fours I use almond pound cake---1lb almond paste, 1lb sugar, 1lb butter, / 1lb eggs and 1lb AP or sometimes cake flour. I started using the same recipe to make almond filling except only using a very little flour. I like the way it performs when baking in tarts. And I can control the result with the amount of flour and mixing.

I have had one problem with this recipe though:

With the almond paste I was using I could not get the paste to completely blend into the batter. This was a problem when making the petit-fours because I spread the batter extremely thin. Ive tried mixing some of the egg yolks with the paste and sugar before beating with butter. It helped but not enough.

Am I just using the wrong brand of paste?

eeyore

[momoreg]

Some brands are lumpier than others, or I should say 'grainy', but most likely, the lumps are due to not adding your liquid ingredients gradually. Make sure you scrape down the bowl frequently, in between each addition of egg.