From the numerous flaky layers of delicate puff pastry, to the creamy clouds of vanilla pastry cream, to the ornamental marbled icing, mille-feuille is a powerful dessert worthy of an important day. Discover ways to make this traditional European pastry in your personal kitchen—no difficult elements or pastry faculty diploma wanted. I embody thorough explanations within the weblog submit under, in addition to many step images within the recipe, to set you up for fulfillment.

Able to majorly impress your self and anybody fortunate sufficient to be a style tester? Let’s make an ornate-looking (however completely approachable) pastry dessert.

What Is Mille Feuille (and How Do You Pronounce It)?

The French “mille feuille” (pronounced meel foy) interprets to a thousand sheets or leaves, an outline of this dessert’s many whisper-thin pastry layers. It’s additionally generally referred to as a “Napoleon” or a “custard slice” relying on the filling and/or area. (There are so many variations!) It doesn’t matter what you name it, this eye-catching European pastry is a powerful sight to behold in a pâtisserie show case.

I’ve cherished poring over recipes on-line, together with from The Spruce Eats, Erin Jeanne McDowell’s on Food52, Bake from Scratch, Preppy Kitchen’s mille feuille, and Prue Leith’s on GBBO. I got down to make my very own model, utilizing a few these recipes as my inspiration.

And at this time I’m going to show you tips on how to make it, too. Identical to with do-it-yourself croissants, it could appear like a frightening baking problem, however if you happen to take your time with a few of the technical steps, I promise it’s doable! The method does take time, however the steps will be damaged up over a few days.

Make Mille-Feuille (Millefeuille or Mille Feuille)

Right here is every little thing it is advisable make this recipe:

Pastry Cream Filling

Let’s begin with the filling as a result of it has cooling and chilling steps concerned; it’s environment friendly to make this primary so it’s prepared when the baked puff pastry layers are prepared. (You may as well make it a day forward.)

Pastry cream, or crème pâtissière, is a vanilla custard-like filling you should use for treats like pies, eclairs, doughnuts, and extra. You prepare dinner it on the range similar to you put together the pudding filling for banana cream pie. It’s fairly thick after chilling, so that you normally want to offer it a stir to {smooth} it out once more. On this layered mille-feuille, we truly take it a step additional and add whipped cream. This significantly lightens up the feel, making it velvety-smooth—suppose do-it-yourself whipped cream, however richer and extra substantial. Once you add whipped cream to pastry cream, I discovered, it’s referred to as crème légère, or lightened cream. (It will also be referred to as diplomat cream or crème diplomate, however that generally contains gelatin.)

Should you’ve ever made Boston cream pie, you’re conversant in pastry cream. I deviated from that recipe, although. It’s a cake filling there, so it’s actually sturdy and thick. I wanted much less pastry cream, and I needed a lighter consistency for this dessert’s filling.

The detailed directions and step images are within the recipe under, however let me share some key steps and success ideas so you’ve got a greater understanding.

• Cornstarch and egg yolks thicken the cream. Mix these first, after which transfer to the range. You’ll simmer entire milk and granulated sugar collectively, after which take away it from warmth and mood the egg yolks.
• Tempering is essential right here. To mood, slowly pour the recent milk combination into the egg yolks and cornstarch, whisking continuously. This rigorously and slowly raises the egg yolks’ temperature. The aim of tempering is to stop scrambling them.
• Pressure it. Simply in case there are some solids! Pour the entire combination again into the saucepan by way of a fine-mesh sieve, to pressure out any solids that will have fashioned.
• Deliver it to a boil. At first it received’t look like it’s thickening a lot, simply getting frothy, however as quickly because it reaches a boil with huge bubbles bursting on the floor, it should thicken up just about instantly.
• Take away from warmth & add taste. Stir in butter, vanilla extract, vanilla bean + a pinch of salt.

Then you definitely’ll must refrigerate it so it thickens.

That is the velvet-rich pastry cream earlier than chilling:

Chill it within the fridge for no less than 3 hours or in a single day. It is going to agency up quite a bit throughout this time. Give it a stir after which mix it with whipped cream. Chill it as soon as once more for 1 hour, so it’s good and thick for piping between the flaky pastry layers.

And that is the pastry cream after combining with whipped cream:

Puff Pastry Layers

I’m utilizing my do-it-yourself tough puff pastry, however you may completely take the shortcut of utilizing store-bought puff pastry. If frozen, thaw it in accordance with package deal directions earlier than you start.

Should you’d prefer to make the tough puff pastry from scratch, you want simply 5 elements: flour, sugar, salt, chilly butter, and chilly water. The entire similar elements as butter pie crust, however there’s the added rolling and folding course of, just like biscuits, which supplies us all of these flaky layers.

After getting your store-bought dough thawed, or the do-it-yourself dough chilled (after the second refrigeration as detailed within the tough puff pastry submit), it’s time to roll it out, and also you’ll discover these precise directions under within the recipe. Place the rolled-out dough on a lined baking sheet and dock it with a fork, similar to you’d when par-baking pie crust.

That is the do-it-yourself puff pastry dough able to bake:

That is the store-bought puff pastry dough able to bake (you’ll join the two sheets that normally are available in a field):

An Odd Step: Weigh It Down!

Now right here’s the step not normally included in puff pastry recipes: we’re going to crush the pastry to stop it from puffing up an excessive amount of.

Place one other sheet of parchment paper on prime of the pastry dough, then set one other baking sheet on prime of that. When you’ve got pie weights, pour them onto the highest baking sheet. You would additionally use dried beans as an alternative. Should you don’t have both, bake it with simply the (empty) prime baking sheet, and when it comes out of the oven, set a pan or skillet on the highest baking sheet whereas it cools.

You’ll bake it lined with weights (or no matter you’re utilizing) for 20 minutes, after which uncovered (with out weights) for one more 7–9 minutes.

Be aware: I discovered that the do-it-yourself puff pastry will get a lot darker than the store-bought; probably as a result of it’s made with butter as an alternative of oil-based fat.

As soon as the baked pastry has cooled, you’ll reduce it into 15 (roughly) equally sized items, to make 5 mille-feuille stacks containing 3 pastry layers every.

Mille-feuille are sometimes rectangular in form, however I discovered that making them as squares was simpler when it got here to chopping uniform-size items. Once I examined these as rectangles, I discovered they had been both too small and tough to assemble, or else made 4 big pastries that had been a lot too massive for particular person parts. I had the perfect success with making 5 assembled 3-inch sq. pastries.

Prime & Assemble the Mille-Feuille

There are lots of methods to prime these, starting from a easy dusting of confectioners’ sugar to fanciful swirls of two-toned icing. Some recipes name for royal icing, whereas others use fondant. I like the signature marbled icing look, in order that’s what I’m demonstrating.

After testing many variations, my style testers and I made up my mind {that a} thick vanilla icing + melted chocolate pairing makes for the tastiest topping. Darkish, bittersweet, or semi-sweet chocolate tastes greatest with the candy vanilla icing. Like I all the time suggest for melting chocolate, chop up a bar of baking chocolate—save the chocolate chips for chocolate chip cookies.

You’ll ice the entire tops first, earlier than assembling, as a result of it’s tough to ice the tops effectively once they’re layered on prime of a creamy filling. Place the 5 pastry squares you’ll use for the tops on a wire rack. With an icing spatula or a spoon, unfold the vanilla icing on every sq.. Then pipe or drizzle melted chocolate on prime. For this, I piped 4 stripes throughout after which used a toothpick to create the traditional chevron design by dragging it in a perpendicular route. Like this:

Now let’s fill the pastries. Match a pastry/piping bag with a big spherical tip, equivalent to Ateco 808 (which I take advantage of for lots of cupcakes—see this piping ideas submit). Or, you may merely use a big plastic bag and snip off a backside nook with scissors.

Begin with one plain (un-iced) sq. of pastry and pipe on 3 dollops of cream in 3 rows, so you’ve got a grid of 9 dollops. Place one other pastry sq. on prime of that, after which repeat the piping the identical approach. Lastly, place one of many iced pastry layers on prime.

Refrigerate the assembled pastries (uncovered) for no less than half-hour earlier than serving, simply so that they aren’t toppling over. Like in most pastry recipes, the fridge is your buddy right here.

Eat Mille-Feuille

Ahh, sure. Essentially the most tough instruction of the day. 😉 On this step, you’ll merely stuff your face with it. However slowly! Savor and revel in each chew. Respect the time that went into making it!

Plate every mille-feuille and serve with a fork, or you may eat it handheld. The longer the assembled pastries sit within the fridge, the extra stable they’ll grow to be. However whatever the time it units, the gentle filling will spill out the edges once you reduce or chew into it, and that’s high-quality! It’s crispy, it’s creamy, it’s close-your-eyes-and-sigh dreamy.

Different Filling Choices

Or you may nonetheless use pastry cream, or any of the recommendations above, and layer your filling of alternative with contemporary raspberries or thinly sliced strawberries and dollops of jam. Or pipe rows of raspberry cake filling between rows of your alternative of cream/mousse filling. A number of choices!

Some Particular Instruments You Want

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