Millefeuille are available in every patisserie in Paris and I was looking forward to making them at pastry school. So you can imagine my disappointment when they were not on the course. However after making them myself I can see why we didn’t spend precious school time on them. They are so easy to make, especially if you buy the puff pastry ready made.
These millefeuille have a layer of raspberry and a layer of lemon crème pâtissière. Be warned, there is no tidy way to eat a millefeuille!
Raspberry Crème Pâtissière
- 250g raspberries
- 2 egg yolks
- 50g caster sugar
- 30g cornflour
First of all, heat the raspberries in a saucepan with a tablespoon of water. Stir gently until the raspberries have broken down and become a liquid. Remove from the heat and pass the liquid through a sieve to remove all the seeds. Place the raspberry purée back in to the saucepan and turn the heat up to a medium heat.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, with the sugar and the cornflour.
Once the raspberry purée is starting to steam, pour a small amount in to the egg mixture and whisk together very quickly. This will help loosen the egg mixture and gently heat it through, reducing the whisk of scrambling the eggs.
Pour the whole mixture into the saucepan, put on a high heat and whisk constantly. The mixture will start to thicken. You need to be careful not to allow any part of the bottom to burn. The easiest way to do this is to keep rotating the pan with one hand and whisk in different directions with the other.
When the mixture is thick and glossy, remove from the heat and pour in to a clean bowl straight away. Leave to cool.
Lemon Crème Pâtissière, you will need…
- 150ml milk (I use semi skimmed)
- 2 egg yolks
- 30g sugar
- 20g cornflour
- zest of 2 lemons
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Pop the milk in a saucepan and put over a low heat. Meanwhile, whisk all the other ingredients together in a separate bowl.
When the milk is starting to steam, pour a small amount in to the egg mixture and whisk. Then (just like with the raspberry crème pat) pour the whole mixture in to the saucepan, turn the heat up to max and whisk continuously. Once the mixture is thick, pour in to a clean bowl and leave to cool.
You can cool both of these in the fridge, but cover with cling film and make sure the film is touching the crème pat to stop a skin forming and to stop condensation developing.
For the pastry, you will need…
- Ready rolled puff pastry, approx 300g
- 1 egg, beaten
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Prepare a baking tray with baking paper. Unroll the pastry. With a clean ruler, measure and cut out 12 rectangles, 9 cm long and 5 cm wide. Place on to the baking tray and space the pastry out.
With a pastry brush, brush a thin layer of egg wash over the top of each piece of pastry and allow to dry. Take another sheet of baking paper and put on top of the pastry. Then place another baking tray on top. This stops the pastry rising too much.
Bake in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.
To assemble the millefeuille, fill two piping bags with the crème pâtissèrie. I used a 12mm round nozzle for both. Lay out 4 pieces of pastry and pipe circles of the raspberry crème pat on each piece (I did 8 circles on each one).
Take four more pieces of pastry and add a layer on top of the raspberry crème pat.
Then pipe circles of lemon crème pat on top of these. Finally adding the top layer of pastry.
To finish, dust with icing sugar and serve straight away.
