Milles Feuilles (Napoleon Pastry)
- Ready In:
- 1hr 10mins
- Ingredients:
- 12
- Serves:
-
6-8
ingredients
- 1 package frozen puff pastry
-
Pastry Cream
- 3 cups milk
- 1⁄3 cup sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1⁄2 teaspoon almond extract
- 3 1⁄2 tablespoons cornflour (corn starch)
- 2 tablespoons butter
-
Whipped Cream
- 2 cups whipping cream
- 1⁄4 cup icing sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons icing sugar
directions
- For the pastry cream: Put 2 1/2 cups milk, sugar, vanilla and almond extracts in a small boil to come to the boil.
- Dissolve the corn flour in the remaining milk and pour into hot milk.
- Whisk the corn flour into the milk and turn off heat.
- Beat the egg yolks in a medium-sized bowl and slowly whisk in some of the hot milk into the yolks, whisking all the while.
- Do this until you have incorporated nearly all the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly, to temper the yolks.
- Add any leftover milk mixture and place a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the custard.
- Refrigerate and cool completely.
- For whipped cream: Place all ingredients in mixer bowl and whip until snowy peaks form.
- Remove 1/3 of whipped cream and fold into pastry cream.
- For pastry: Preheat oven to 425F.
- Take 1 sheet of puff pastry and lay out flat, with long side facing you.
- Cut in 1/2 lengthwise.
- Repeat with other sheet of puff pastry, so you have 4 equal pieces.
- Butter a cookie sheet or baking pan large enough to contain the puff pastry pieces and place the pastry on the cookie sheet.
- Pierce the pastry all over with a fork.
- Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 300F and bake a further 35-40 minutes (pastry should be baked through and a deep golden-brown).
- To assemble: Place 1 sheet of pastry on a platter, spread with half of pastry cream, ensuring you don't spread all the way out to the edges of the pastry.
- Place another sheet of pastry over and spread with remainder of pastry cream.
- Place third sheet of pastry over and spread top and sides of assembled pastry with whipped cream.
- Crumble up the fourth pastry sheet with your hands and sprinkle broken pieces of pastry on top of whipped cream and press some onto sides.
- Place in refrigerator for 1/2 hour to set.
- Just before serving, place 2 tblsps of icing sugar into a sieve and sieve directly over cake.
- Serve immediately.
- This is a dessert that is quick to make and assemble but has to be eaten close to making, otherwise the puff pastry absorbs moisture and becomes soggy.
- Note: A very nice variation is to thinly spread the first and second puff pastry sheet (the ones that you spread with the custard) with a thin scraping of seedless raspberry jam before you spread with custard.
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OK, here goes. I live in Athens, Greece. I moved out here many, many years ago from Ottawa, Canada - so I am blessed in having two wonderful heritages!
I suffer from compulsive obsessive behaviour with regard to food and my psychiatrist thought it would be a good idea to find a 'society' where many have the same problem and try to find a cure.
So far, I've copied a couple of thousand recipes from this site and my psychiatrist has thrown the towel in and refuses to answer the phone when I call.
What did I do wrong?
Got 3 kids that keep me on the go - 10 and under at this point (2008) - I may not get round to updating this for a few years, so you'll have to do your own maths.
I teach English full-time and Greek Cookery part-time. I would like to make the cooking part of it full-time and the English Grammar part of it part-time.
That's all for now.