Mille-Feuille or Napolean is a multi layered pastry of French origin. Typically these are made up of multiple layers of puff pastry with cream or jam between layers.
This is a very convenient dessert if you are planning a party at home, as you can make this in advance and keep it refrigerated. The usual method of making this is to put a cling wrap inside of the pan so that you can pull it out and cut to pieces before serving. But since I made it to take to a potluck (I made it around the Christmas time), I thought this would be a better way to carry and serve.
Wishing all of you a nice Memorial Day weekend!
Recipe adapted from
Not So Humble Pie
Ingredients:
320 ml whole milk
75 grams granulated sugar
28 grams unsalted butter
28 grams cornstarch
2 large eggs
5 ml pure vanilla extract
480 ml heavy cream
7 grams granulated gelatin
60 ml water
1 pack Puff pastry sheets
Method:
Heat the oven to 400°F.
Unfold the pastry on a lightly floured surface.Prick it all over with a fork. Cut the pastry into 3 strips along the fold marks. Cut each strip into 6 rectangles, making 18 rectangles in all. Place the pastries 1 inch apart on 2 baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes or until they're golden brown.(If you don’t want your puff to rise put a piece of parchment on top and weight it down with a couple of cookie sheets). Remove the pastries from the baking sheets and cool them on wire racks.
Combine 1 cup of the milk and 2 1/2tbs of the sugar into a heavy bottomed sauce pan. Add the butter and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar.
Meanwhile, mix cornstarch with the remaining milk and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until completely smooth.
When the milk comes to a boil remove from heat immediately and pour a third of the hot milk into the bowl with the eggs and cornstarch while mixing with the whisk. Return this mixture to pan with the remaining hot milk and set over medium heat stirring constantly with the whisk.
Cook the mixture until it comes to a boil, has thickened and the whisk leaves a trail in the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a stainless steel bowl set into an ice bath and allow to cool, stirring occasionally.
Sprinkle the gelatin over a small bowl containing 60ml of cool water and allow to bloom for 5 minutes.
Mix the gelatin into the pastry cream (it should still be warm, that's okay. It should be warm for this step). Strain through a fine mesh sieve into another non-reactive metal bowl and return it to the ice bath.
Once the cream hits roughly 75°F (room temperature) beat the heavy cream to soft peaks and then gently mix one third of the whipped cream into the pastry cream. Fold the remaining cream in until no streaks remain.
(Use immediately, the cream cannot be made in advance)
Line a loaf pan, or same biscuit box with plastic wrap (as I said in before I skipped this step)
Lay the pastry sheets covering the bottom of the pan .Slather a thick, even layer of the cream onto the sheet of pastry. Top with a second layer of pastry sheets and add another layer of the cream. Top with the third layer of pastry and then wrap this with cling wrap/plastic wrap. Chill in the refregerator overnight.
Before serving, flip the loaf over serving plate and remove the plastic wrap. Sprinkle some icing sugar on top using a siever. Cut and serve.As I had more than enough of cream or pudding I used it for the final finishing and topped it with some chocolate powder.
