Millefeuille

A few weeks ago at Amelie's French Bakery in NoDa, I had a Millefeuille, sometimes called a Napoleon, and ever since then, I've been craving another! Due to the "snow storm", school was cancelled, so I figured that the best way to spend my day off was to attempt this classic French pastry.

I looked up several recipes and took different components from each. I cheated on the puff pastry and used store-bought puff pastry, but I am including a homemade recipe from my favorite cookbook, Lunch in Provence. I followed this recipe for the cream filling. One of the reasons this is my favorite cookbook is because it features stories and pictures of the Provence region of France, my favorite of course. However, one thing that I am not crazy about is the explanation (or lack there of) for the recipes. The authors assume that you are a classically-trained French chef and do not need specific instructions on how to prepare or cook these recipes. After hounding my mother for some insight and searching the internet, I was able to give it a try.

***This recipe yields 6 pastries. If you are using store-bought puff pastry, I found that each "sheet" made 2 pastries.

Puff Pastry Ingredients
2 1/2 cups flour
1 generous t salt
1 T butter, softened
scant 1/2 cup cold water
1 3/4 sticks butter
confectioners' sugar for dusting

Cream Filling Ingredients
1 cup milk
1 T butter
1 vanilla pod (you can also substitute vanilla extract, 1 t = 1 pod)
3/4 cup sugar
2-3 egg yolks
1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup whipping cream

Directions - Puff Pastry
Mix the flour, salt and butter. Add the cold water then mix with your hands until the dough is firm. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours.

Roll the dough out into a rectangle and place the butter (1 3/4 stick) in the center. Fold the corners so the butter is wrapped in the dough, then roll it out again until 1 1/4 inch thick. Fold in thirds and refrigerate for another 2 hours.

When the pastry is ready, roll it out again - about 1/5 inch thick. Bake at 360ºF for about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with powder sugar, bake again until the sugar caramelizes.

Cut the pastry into rectangles.

Directions - Cream Filling
In a saucepan bring the milk, butter and vanilla pod to a boil.

Beat together the sugar, egg yolks, and flour. When the milk comes to a boil, add the egg mixture, mix well and return to the saucepan. Bring this mixture back to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool.

Whip the cream and add it to the cooled mixture, and refrigerate.

***This recipe does not specify when to remove the vanilla pod. I decided to remove it right before I assembled the pastry. I cut it up the middle and scraped out the seeds and mixed them in.

Directions - Assembling
Layer the puff pastry with the cream filling. Normally, there are three layers of pastry and two layers of cream.

I made a simple icing (powder sugar and milk) for the op layer. I then melted bitter-sweet chocolate to drizzle on top of the icing. I need to work on my "drizzling" skills, I'm not fully satisfied with the look of the pastries but they sure do taste yummy!