Millefeuille another bake on my recipe list, this one made back in February for my mums birthday. I did not quite follow the recipe, I made a few tweaks with the filling. I was baking these to serve 13 members of the family, all of which I knew would want more than one. Hence so many took an awful lot of assembling.
Before you ask yes I used packet puff pastry, who would not, I am more than happy to follow Mary Berry's lead on this. This basic recipe is taken from the Cake Magic recipe book by Kate Shirazi.As most of you will not be baking for a small army this recipe serves 6.
Millefeuille Recipe
Ingredients500g packet of all butter puff pastry
5 tbsp icing sugar (plus extra for dusting)300ml/10 fl oz double cream
1 vanilla pod
1 tbsp caster sugar
lemon curd / strawberry jam
strawberries / blueberries
Preheat over 200 degrees / Gas 6.
- Roll out the pastry onto a floured surface, until its 5mm thick, retaining a rectangular shape.
- With a sharp knife cut into nine rectangles about twice as long as they are wide. I used a ruler to help me with this.
- Place onto a baking sheet with a none stick liner and sprinkle the icing sugar over the top. Bake for 15 minutes, the pastry will be all puffy and golden. Place onto a wire rack to cool.
- Whisk the double cream, so it is at a floppy soft peak, carefully not to over whip it like I did and had whip a second batch. Split the vanilla pod and scrap the seeds out adding them to the cream along with the caster sugar. Gently mix these into the cream, until you get a slightly stiffer mixture.
- Slice the strawberries.
- Split each piece of pastry into two, this will give you eighteen lovely rectangles of pastry.
- Now I spent a little time matching my pastry so that I had three evenly sized piece of pastry for each Millefeuille including a nice glazed top.
- Onto the fun part, assembling. I spread either some lemon curd or strawberry jam over a piece of pastry followed by some cream and topped with fruit, then place the next piece of pastry on top and repeat topping with the gazed pastry. I found a smidgen of cream would help the pastry stick on top of the fruit layer.
- Sprinkle with icing sugar prior to serving. Then try and eat them as ladylike as you can.
Consumer feedback!
Following the family demolition of my Millefeuille, I have some recommendation.- Keep the numbers small do not try and make these for a large number of people, it becomes extremely time consuming and rather tedious.
- Cut and bake the pastry the day before and keep in a airtight container.
- The strawberries and lemon curd combination were a real hit.
- The blueberries were very disappointing, there was no really flavor when you bite into them, the strawberries were much preferred. I would think raspberries would also work well.
