Mille-feuille or Napoleon

Napoleon or Mille-feuille 

This is a classic French pastry which is popular in Europe. It's made by alternating layers of pastry with custard cream, and it isn't difficult to make at home, particularly if you use frozen puff pastry dough.


Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Chilling time: 2 hours
Total Time: 3 hours, 25 minutes
Yield: 8 servings


Ingredients: 


For the Pastry 390 gm. frozen puff pastry or "Tenderflake" 1 package

 For the Filling or  Pastry Cream 

2 cups half and half or light cream
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons flour
40gm corn starch
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (or 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring) or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 whipping cream stabilizer

Yields enough pastry cream for two 9" or 10"


Preparation:

Ahead of Time

Make the Pastry Cream. Creme patissiere, or pastry cream, is a vanilla-flavored filling for pastries. Once it has cooled to room temperature, chill it in the fridge until needed.
In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the half and half cream with the vanilla bean almost to boiling.

While the cream is heating, mix the egg yolks and sugar together in a large bowl, then whisk in the flour and cornstarch until the mixture is smooth.

Remove the vanilla bean from the milk, and gradually whisk the hot milk into the egg mixture. Strain the mixture back into the saucepan, and place over medium heat, stirring or whisking constantly until the mixture thickens and reaches a boil. Continue cooking for half a minute longer, stirring hard and constantly to keep the pastry cream smooth.

Remove the pastry cream from the heat. (Stir in the vanilla flavoring at this point if you did not use a vanilla bean). Place a layer of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pastry cream to avoid a skin forming, and leave to cool.


Separately in a small mixing bowl beat whipping cream with the stabilizer and until soft peaks form. Fold whipped cream into warm pastry cream and leave it to cool completely in the fridge.
The pastry cream can be used when cool, or covered and refrigerated for up to several days until needed. Stir chilled pastry cream before using. 

Bake the pastry layers.

Preheat your oven to 400° F (200° C). Roll out the puff pastry dough into an elongated rectangle the thickness of a thin piece of cardboard. With a sharp knife, cut the dough into three equally-sized pieces.

Transfer the dough to a baking pan (or pans) lined with parchment paper and pierce the dough all over with a fork. Cover the dough with another sheet of parchment paper and place a baking pan or pie weights on top to weigh down the dough as it bakes.

Bake the dough, in batches if necessary, about 15-20 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown. The weights and top layer of parchment paper pan may be removed the last five or so minutes of baking to help color the dough if necessary.

Transfer the dough to racks to cool completely.


Assemble and Decorate the Mille-Feuille

It's best to work on a flat surface for easy transfer of the finished pastry to a serving dish. Have everything at hand – the baked puff pastry layers, the pastry cream, and the ingredients for frosting and decorating. Don't worry if your baked pastry layers look unevenly sized; before  assembly you'll be trimming the edges for a uniform look and save the edges for decorating the cake.

Start by distributing 1/3 of the pastry cream over one layer of baked puff pastry. Top with another layer of dough, pressing gently to adhere it to the pastry cream below. Spread the remaining the other 1/3 of the cream over the second layer of pastry. Top with the third layer of pastry and again press down gently and spread the remaining 1/3 all over the top and edge of the cake.

Next, working quickly, crumble the left over puff pastry edges and mix with the super fine (powder) sugar.
Spread the crumble puff pastry all over the cake on top of the cream and on the sides of the cake.


A traditional Napoleon is filled with plain pastry cream but if desired you may add a thin layer of fruit preserves such as seedless raspberry or strawberry jam/

bon appetite