It’s Daring Baker’s time of the month and they are back this time with these sumptuous buttery flaky tiny little French delicacies. Mille Feuille, literally meaning thousand layers, is a cream or custard filled slice, which is also known as Napoleon. I had first seen this dessert a year ago on Donna Hay’s show Fast, Fresh, Simple. I was captivated by the sheer simplicity and the beauty for those petite desserts filled with light and airy whipped cream and topped with the freshness of summer berries. They were indeed fast, fresh and simple, as her recipes claim to be.
Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!
And now was the time to actually tick them off my long to-bake list. Instead of doing the challenge this time at the last day, I planned to bake my puff pastry a week in advance. I have done puff pastry before, but the rough puff pastry version. I decided to go one step further. Encasing the soft beurre manié {butter & flour creamed together and chilled} inside the détrempe {soft dough made with flour, little butter and cold water}and then rolling, folding, chilling, rolling, folding, chilling, rolling … and so on, until you are done with six tours. But sadly, after spending a long day in kitchen, the end result I got in my hands was a tough, never risen long sheet of crunchy pastry. It tasted good because of all that butter which went into, but not good enough to eventually be turned into a gorgeous dessert.
Failing the new way, I resorted to my ever reliable rough puff pastry method, which I did for these savory tomatoes and caramelized onion tartlettes {will give it a try again, when I’ll have enough time at hand}. I filled my mille feuille with vanilla mascarpone cream and some fresh fruits.
Ingredients
250 gms puff pastry {recipe here}
1 cup mascarpone {homemade, recipe here}
1/2 cup low fat cream
1 vanilla bean, seeded
4 tbsp honey
fruits of your choice
icing sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 200 C. Dust the work surface with some flour and roll the pastry, of about 0.5 cm thickness.
- Place the pastry on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Prick with fork at multiple places. Bake for about 20 minutes. After first 10 minutes of baking, place an inverted cooling rack on top of pastry in order to avoid too much puffing of the pastry.
- After it is baked for 20 minutes, invert the pastry on the parchment paper and again bake for 5 minutes.
- Let pastry cool completely on a wire rack.
- In a bowl, whip the mascarpone with vanilla seeds and honey until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, whip the cream, until you get soft peaks. Fold the cream in mascarpone and let chill in the fridge.
- While ready to serve, cut the puff pastry into small squares, keeping in mind, you have two for each piece.
- Take one pastry slice and spread a generous amount of mascarpone cream mixture and top with fruits gently. Do the same with another slice and place it over the previous one. Dust over some icing sugar to give them a snowy look.