Every Good and Perfect Gift

My first experience of Mille Feuille was from a plane meal tray more than 30 years ago. Mille Feuille is a traditional French pastry made from puff pastry and custard cream. Mille Feuille is not an easy dessert name to remember partly because it is hard to pronounce if you are not a native speaker. I have heard the dessert being pronounced differently by people who are proficient in French.

Forget the French name if you have trouble with the letter L there. This pastry is also known as Napoleon. But I think Mille Feuille sounds more elegant for this stunning dessert.

At first look, the dessert looks complicated but in reality it is quite easy to do. For simplicity, I use store bought ready roll puff pastry. I just need to cook custard cream which I did the night before, a box of strawberries and I'm ready to assemble.


Strawberry Mille Feuille
Adapted from Home Cooking Advenure
serves 3

Ingredients

1 frozen puff pastry 10" x 10"
1 tbsp powdered sugar

Vanilla Pastry Cream

1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup cornstarch
pinch of salt
1 tbsp unsalted butter, 20gms
fresh raspberries
Powdered sugar, for dusting the top

Method

Vanilla Custard Cream

• Prepare the pastry cream. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until slightly pale. Incorporate the cornstarch and salt.
• Pour the milk into a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Pour about a third of the hot milk over the egg yolks mixture. Pour the whole mixture into the saucepan over the milk. Bring to a boil while stirring. Remove from heat and add vanilla extract.
• Pour the cream into a clean bowl and allow to cool for 10 minutes then incorporate the butter while stirring. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface of the pastry cream to prevent forming a skin on the surface. Refrigerate until chilled.

Puff Pastry

• Preheat the oven to 165C(180C). Butter a baking sheet and line with parchment paper. On a floured surface roll out the puff pastry dough to a rectangle of 1/10 inch thickness.

• Using the rolling pin transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet. Prick the dough with the fork and cover with another sheet of parchment paper.

•  Place another baking sheet on top to prevent the dough from puffing to much. Bake for about 25 minutes until lightly golden.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
• Preheat the oven to 240C.

• To caramelize the pastry, sprinkle about 1 tbsp powdered sugar, in a thin layer over the baked pastry. Bake (grill) for few minutes using the broil function until the sugar is melted.
• Caramelize the other side of the puff pastry. When chilled trim the edged and cut the pastry in 3 rectangles.

Assemble

• Assemble the mille feuille. Place one layer of caramelized puff pastry on the serving plate. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch plain round tip with pastry cream. Spread pastry cream over the top and add strawberries. Place another layer of puff pastry on top of the filling. Add pastry cream strawberries and the last layer of pastry. 

• Allow to chill in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight before cutting it for serving. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

This post is linked to Bake Along hosted by Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.James 1:17