(Experiment 22) Mille feuilles

This French classic is always a crowd-pleaser. It’s fluffy, buttery, and perfectly sweet.

One would think its hard to make but it’s not, it does take some time but all good things in life take time 😉

You need

Custard

• 750g milk
• 3 eggs
• 20g cornstarch
• 60g flour
• 70g butter
• 140g sugar
• dash of vanilla extract

Glaze

• 200g icing sugar
• dash vanilla extract
• 40g* milk

Puff pastry –> how-to here

Decoration

• 25g dark chocolate

Instructions

1. Once you are done making the puff pastry dough and it has rested at least an hour, take it out, and using a rolling pin, lay it flat to about 1/8″. Now there are 2 ways to proceed, either you bake the whole sheet and cut it off or you cut them to the desired size prior to baking. I have always used the first method but this time, I tried the second way. For each method there is a tradeoff, taste-wise its the same
2. Pre-cut shape: Easy to have a square shape but you are doing a bunch of individual ones, so more time consuming
   Whole: You construct one huge mille feuilles and cut it afterward, making clean-cut can be a challenge
3. Reverse a baking tray, lay parchment paper then put each piece of dough at least 1 each apart from each other. Put another layer of parchment paper on top then put another baking tray on top. This will prevent it to rise too much and will give it a flat look. Cook 15 mins at 400F.Once cooked let them cool on a wire rack. Note: if you cut them all out of shape you can use a knife to cut the sides.
4. While it bakes we can work on the custard. In a pot put the milk, half the sugar, and vanilla extract, give it a good stir and bring to a near simmer. In a mixing bowl, stir the egg with the remaining sugar. Add the flour and cornstarch to the egg and mix until it’s a smooth texture and there are no chunks left.
5. Add about half the milk in the egg mixture and stir until well combined. Transfer back the egg mixture to the pot and heat again over medium-low. Once it starts to thicken cook for another 4 minutes. Stir in the butter then transfer to a large bowl to cool it down. Cover with plastic film directly on the custard.
6. To make the glaze, put the sugar in a mixing bowl, add half the milk, and stir. It will be powdery, keep stirring for another minute and you will see it will start to get together. If it’s really still dry, add a bit more milk and keep stirring. You want a syrupy texture.
7. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler and put into a piping bag or a Ziploc ( cut one of the bottom edge).
8. As mentioned, I used the pre-cut technique here so you need 3 puff pastry layers for each milles feuille. If you didn’t use this technique just build 1 with the big slab. Assemble 3 puff pastry sets. Here I made 8, so take 8 and put them aside ( these will be our tops). If you have a wire rack put them on it if not, lay them on parchment paper. Cover with the glaze and quickly make parallel lines of chocolate. Use the back of a knife or a toothpick to make a line in the opposite direction ( going up/down) to create a chevron pattern.
9. Before using the custard, it should be pretty thick by now, use a mixer or stand mixer and stir it up back to a “creamy” texture.
10. Take one of the layer, cover with custard, put another layer on top, cover with custard and then finally put your top layer on.

Tip

You can make the custard and puff pastry the day before. Once the custard is cooled, put it in the fridge. Put the puff pastry in an airtight container.