"Mille-feuille vanille framboise" (Raspberry Napoleon Cake)
Contrary to a legend coming from the treacherous Albion, the Mille-feuille was not the favourite cake of Napoleon Bonaparte. At that time he did not exist yet!
Maguelonne Toussaint-Salmat, the author of the Very Beautiful and Very Exquisite History of Cakes, nevertheless mentions a recipe published in 1806 and signed by a certain Rouget, of whom nothing else is known.
It is actually the pastry shop Seugnot, in Paris, which proposed the first mille-feuille in 1867. Its name derives obviously from the swelling layers of puff pastry which form like delicious leaves. De Dubose, the pastry chef of Seugnot, was said to be the king of the mille-feuille!
Traditionally, the mille-feuille is stuffed with a vanilla pastry cream flavored with rum, whose sides are decorated with slivered almonds and whose top is either glazed in the fondant or covered with icing sugar.
As well as crème brûlée or éclair, the mille-feuille symbolizes the genius of French pastry throughout the world. In recent years, the traditional mille-feuille has been declining in favor of more original and contemporary interpretations.
For Valentine's Day, we suggest you discover a raspberry variation
Ingredients (Serve 4)
Caramelized puff pastry:
- 2 puff pastries (17 x 17cm minimum)
- Icing sugar
Vanilla custard cream:
- 260 ml of milk
- 1 vanilla pod
- 3 egg yolks
- 45g of sugar
- 25g of cornstarch
- 25g of butter (optional, but so much better)
Garnish:
- 200g raspberries
Directions
Steps For puff pastry hearts:
- Detail 2 puff pastry hearts using a template.
- Put these hearts on a baking tray with baking paper and bake at 160 ° C for about 30 minutes.
- Remove them and increase the heat of the oven to 250 ° C.
- "Crush" the cooked pastries (before it has time to cool, otherwise it may deteriorate) so that it becomes flatter.
- Turn hearts
- Sprinkle with a good layer of icing sugar and refurbish until sugar has caramelized.
- Reserve
For pastry cream:
- Mix egg yolks, sugar until the blending of the mixture.
- Add the cornflour and mix.
- Add warm milk and vanilla beans, heat the mixture and count another 1 minute of cooking after thickening the cream (mix well throughout this stage).
- Remove from heat (add butter), pour into a container.
- Film on contact (to prevent a crust from forming on the surface of the cream) until completely cool.
- Reserve in the fridge.
- Mix this cream with a whisk to make it smooth and put in pocket.
For mounting:
- Sprinkle the puff pastry with icing sugar using a smaller homemade template.
- Place raspberries on the edges and make beautiful balls of vanilla cream inside.
- Do not hesitate to add whole raspberries in the middle too!
- Put the second heart on top and decorate with the remaining raspberries.