Classic Mille-Feuille Cake
INGREDIENTS ( 10 servings )
PASTRY
powdered sugar
220g puff pastry
PASTRY CREAM
0.5 vanilla bean
0.5 pinch salt
620ml milk
130g more of granulated sugar (or 100 g glucose )
4 eggs
150g granulated sugar
65g cornstarch
GLAZE
53g dark chocolate
310g fondant
Steps to Make It
1 _To prepare the pastry, you will need a rectangular 30x40-cm baking
tray. Roll out the puff pastry to fit the tray, transfer it to the tray, and
then prick the pastry with a fork.
2_ Bake in an oven preheated at 200 °C for 15 minutes, then remove
from the oven and cover with parchment paper. Now, place the same
sized baking tray over the parchment-covered pastry to prevent the
pastry from rising too much, but be careful that the tray is not too
heavy, then bake for another 30 minutes.
3_ Once the 30 minutes have passed, take out of the oven, set the
oven temperature to 260 °C and turn on the grill mode. Now, remove
the cover tray and parchment paper, and sprinkle the pastry with
powdered sugar, then bake for 5 minutes, but be careful not to burn
the pastry. Immediately after you take the puff pastry out of the oven,
cut it in three equally sized bands .
4_ To make the pastry cream, in a saucepan heat milk with one-half of
the sugar and a vanilla bean. Then, in a separate bowl, whisk eggs,
cornstarch, and sugar and once the milk has boiled, pour it in three
times over the egg mixture--that way the eggs will not curdle. Place
the entire mixture into a saucepan and continue cooking on medium
heat while continuously whisking.
5 _Once boiling, leave the cream to boil for two minutes, remove it
from heat and pour on a pan covered with plastic wrap, then cover the
pastry cream with a plastic wrap, and leave to chill.
6_ When both the cream and the pastry bands have cooled, fill a
piping bag fitted with a big plain tip with cream, and pipe stripes of
cream on the band of pastry (flat side down), place the second band
of pastry to on top and repeat with the cream. Finish by placing the
third band of pastry flat side up and let the assembled mille feuille
chill.
7 _To make the glaze first melt the chocolate and place it in a
parchment paper piping cone. In a bain marie, heat the fondant with
half a spoon of water, but make sure you do not overheat it. Ideally,
the temperature should only be at around 35-37°C. Pour the runny
fondant on top of the mille-feuille and quickly spread it with a spatula.
The fondant dries quickly, so make sure you do this fast.
8_ Before the fondant dries completely, with a piping cone quickly
draw on it multiple chocolate lines. Using the back tip of a knife, make
evenly-spaced perpendicular lines, then halfway between those lines,
make marks with a knife, but this time in the opposite direction.
9 _Chill the finished mille-feuille for a couple of hours in the
refrigerator or freeze it for 20 to 30 minutes then, using a serrated
knife, cut a couple of millimeters from the edges to make them
straight.
10_ Once the mille-feuille is cold and firm, cut it into individual
portions with a serrated knife.
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