Almond Cream

You’ll love this almond cream (creme d’amande) which is such a delicious yet easy classic French pastry filling recipe with 5 ingredients. You may want to use it over and over again in your sweet treats!

If you love almonds, you’ll love today’s delectable pastry filling recipe. It is as simple as mixing ingredients in a bowl until it is creamy.  

What is Almond Cream?

Almond cream is a delicious French spreadable filling that is made with few ingredients; almond flour, butter, eggs, sugar and flour/cornstarch.

It should be baked while using to avoid any contamination as it is a raw filling.  If you want you can add rum or almond extract to enhance the flavor. 

Although usually frangipane is used as another name for almond cream, actually if you want to make frangipane, you should be mixing pastry cream and almond cream together.

You can make many delicious sweet treats with this filling; tarts and many pastries.

Most Common Tart Recipes with This Filling

You may want to use this filling in the following tart recipes; peach almond cream tart (crust topped with almond filling and peaches), pear almond tart (crust topped with almond filling and poached pears) and English Bakewell tart (tart crust that is covered with a layer of jam and topped with almond cream filling and almond flakes).

Ingredients you’ll Need

• Almond flour-If you don’t have almond flour you can easily make yours. You can check my how to blanch almonds post and make your own almond flour.
• Butter-You need unsalted butter. It should be room temperature as you’ll cream (mix) the butter and sugar for a creamy texture.
• Sugar-granulated sugar
• Eggs-You’ll need room temperature eggs.
• Flour or cornstarch-It thickens the filling. 
• Almond extract-It enhances the flavor.  It is optional but for a strong almond flavor I suggest you use it. If you don’t have it, don’t worry, your filling will still be delicious.

Ratio for this filling

The most common ratio is using 1 part of each 4 main ingredients by weight.  

For example, 1 large egg is 55 grams.

Then you can use 55 grams of each; butter, sugar and almond flour.

Some recipes use the same amount of butter, sugar and flour by weight with a different egg amount.

I use the same amount of almond flour, butter and sugar as well but with slightly more than eggs’ weight as I find this ratio richer. Below in the recipe card, I share my own ratios.

Step by step instructions

First  I place the butter and sugar into a bowl of my stand mixer and cream the mixture for  2-3 minutes with a paddle attachment until fluffy.   If you want to use a handheld mixer, sure you can. 

Or even you can do it by hand but keep in mind that you should mix the butter and sugar until fluffy which is essential for this recipe. This would take more than 3 minutes by hand.

Then I stop the mixer, scrape the sides with a spatula and add the eggs one at a time after beating each addition. Next, I add the almond extract.

Finally, I add the almond flour and flour (you can use cornstarch if you like) and mix until combined.

Now your almond cream is ready to use. You can use it in your blind baked or partially blind baked tart crust, top with fruit or you can make other easy desserts with puff pastry as well.

If you’ll use it for later, cover with plastic film and keep in the fridge for up to 2 days.

Enjoy this homemade almond cream!

Other almond recipes you may enjoy!

• Almond Pudding
• Almond Flour Peanut Butter Cookies
• Almond Date Balls
• Candied Almonds
• Almond Extract Cookies