Mille-Feuille aka a Napoleon

All right, the picture kind of sucks because I had to use my phone. Also, I didn’t actually taste these. I had half a bite, and I judge it as a 9.  Here is this fantastic dessert:

This is fairly easy in the realm of a really decent dessert. It just takes a lot of steps.

Step 1:

Buy a Pepperidge Farm puffed pastry box from the store. Do not attempt to make your own. Unless you are Rebecca (a pastry chef). Please see my earlier post about turnovers to read how I feel about homemade puff pastry.

Step 2:

Make pastry cream. Here is the recipe I always use, which came originally from my Dad. I have no idea where he got it.

 

Pastry Cream

 

3/4 cup sugar I cut this down slightly, maybe 2 Tbs.

1/2 cup flour

1/4 tsp. salt

3 cups milk It needs to be whole

4 egg yolks

3 Tbs. butter

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla I increase this to 2 tsp. and Watkin’s brand is a must in my opinion

Combine dry ingredients and stir. Add milk and stir until smooth. Over medium heat, bring to a near boil, stirring constantly. Pour 1/3 into bowl of egg yolks, then pour back into pan and bring to a boil. Cook for two minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and butter. Pour into bowl and cover with saran wrap, let cool for one hour then place in fridge to chill for at least 6 hours.

 

Step 3:

 

Whip a pint of cream and combine it with the pastry cream. I did sweeten my cream and add vanilla.

 

Step 4:

Assemble!

So, the pastry comes in a sheet that has 3 natural folds. Cut along those folds and cook in a rectangle sheet until golden brown. It was like 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Then, cool them completely. When they are cool, take a great bread knife and carefully slice them in half lengthwise so that they are half as tall as they were before but the same rectangle shape. Then, you put the pastry down, add cream, the pastry, cream, pastry, etc. until you have 6 pastries and 5 in between cream layers. I put ganache over the top (see the post on banana cake for my ganache recipe).

 

I did 2 versions. In the first, I put toasted coconut in the filling. In the second, I left the filling the same and put fresh raspberries on top of each pastry cream layer. Smash the raspberries first though—it sounds weird, but it keeps it from toppling. Then, refrigerate it for an hour or so. You cut it into small pieces. Next time, I might make individual ones instead, which would be easier because once it’s assembled, it’s hard to cut. Use a serrated edge knife.