Making Strawberry Mille Feuille

On Thursday, the 10th of February Eka asked me to post a step-by-step for Strawberry Mille-Feuille. Now, although the word “Mille Feuille” means “a thousand leaves”, when cooking that usually translates to “big trouble”.A “thousand” anything means you’re going to have to layer. And that can either mean you’re going to end up making a large number of crepe (mille crepe) or making puff pastry, which is the case in this recipe. If you have frozen puff pastry available to you, then I envy you. For the rest of you who for some reason can’t get your hands on the goods, then follow through the recipe I’ve included below and keep your fingers (and toes!) crossed :)

As for the dessert itself, “Traditionally, a Mille-feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry (pâte feuilletée), alternating with two layers of pastry cream (crème pâtissière), but sometimes whipped cream, or jam. The top is usually glazed with icing or fondant in alternating white (icing) and brown (chocolate) strips, and combed. Alternatively the top pastry layer may be dusted with confectioner’s sugar, cocoa, or pulverized nuts (e.g. roasted almonds).” [source: Wikipedia] and so naturally, this post will include all three recipes for pastry, cream, and glazed fruit.

Puff Pastry (recipe taken from Artisan Sweets)

[ 390g all purpose flour + 1 teaspoon salt + 90g unsalted butter + 210ml cold water + 300g unsalted butter, softened ]

Now the step-by-step instruction is rather long, so I’m hoping that you’ll go to the blog where the recipe is from and read it from there. Purrddy pleaaase? Thank you! :)

Just know that by the end of following the recipe to the letter, you should end up with a dough that has striations/lines of butter-dough-butter-dough, which looks stupendously beautiful,because you’ll know that you’ve done it correctly. All that butter will help the pastry puff and rise and become delicately crunchy and just…superb.

From then you just need to cut the pastry into any shape you like and stick them in the oven at 140 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes.

Pastry Cream:

[ 300ml milk + 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise + 3 large egg yolks + 50g sugar + 20g all-purpose flour + 20g corn flour ]

In a medium-sized stainless steel bowl, whisk the sugar and egg yolks together until pale. Sift the flour and cornstarch together and then add to the egg mixture,mixing until you get a smooth paste. Set aside.

In a pan, combine the milk and split vanilla bean on medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat and add slowly to egg mixture, whisking constantly to prevent curdling.

Place the egg mixture back into a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat until boiling, whisking constantly. When it boils, whisk mixture constantly for another 30 - 60 seconds until it becomes very thick and it is hard to stir.

Remove from heat and immediately whisk in the liqueur (if using). Pour into a clean bowl and immediately cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming. Cool in the fridge.

Glazed Strawberry:

Now you know there’s nothing wrong with just slicing up some fresh strawberries and sandwiching it between the cream and the pastry, but if you include this step, it will really kick up the dessert a notch.

[2 handfulls of strawberry + 3 tablespoon powdered sugar + juice of 1/2 a lemon]

Cut the strawberries into halves. In a pan, toss with the lemon juice and powdered sugar.

Turn the heat on high and caramelize for 2-3 minutes until glossy. Take off from heat and set aside.

Assembly:

Take a piece of pastry, spread some pastry cream and spoon the strawberries on top. Repeat again and then finish off with a dusting of powdered sugar.