Mille Feuille For Every Season – strawberries, pears, pineapples, bananas, mango

Mille Feuille For Every Season - strawberries, pears, pineapples, bananas, mango

by Azélia on 21/01/2010

in Chocolate,Desserts,Featured Sidebar Post,Fruit,Pastry

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The title says it all, have the mille fueille any time of year, with any combination of fruit and any cream, traditional custard the crème pâtissière, simple whipped cream, mascarpone and crème fraiche or even chocolate mousse.  Mille feuille in Portuguese, called ‘mile folhas’, a thousand leaves, is very easy to make if buying your puff pastry. I would recommend if you can, grab a packet of butter puff pastry if not I would spread more icing sugar in the butter-free ones, they seem to need it.

The top photo of mille feuille with strawberries and blueberries I made back in the height of summer, when my brother and bikerboy’s dad were over for Sunday lunch.  If you want to make grown men quiet give them this dessert, silence overcomes them when munching into this…bliss!  They’re very easy to prepare, you can make the pastry hours in advance even the night before, they’ll be a touch less crispier but not noticeable enough to worry about it, just make sure it’s not left in a damp environment, otherwise it loses its crispness.  I leave mine in a dry room uncovered with no problems.  My advice with this dessert is to assemble it when you want to serve it to have the maximum crispy pastry against the smooth cream and fruit. Not a problem because you have all the rest prepare ahead, cream and fruit if using it.

Traditional mille fueille is just sandwiched with custard cream and no fruit, and three layers of pastry but I say play around with it, making your own combination.  I like to put fruit in mine but I could have also served the fruit on the side, and I think with the individual ones it would make them easier and quicker to assemble, now as I’m writing this I wish I had thought of that idea when I was making them.

Endless Possibilities

Having finished the write up for this post I just had the idea of sandwiching the puff pastry sheets with a tiramisu filling which would be Bikerboy’s ultimate mille feuille!  When I have gotten rid of this cold that’s what I shall be doing.

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I wanted to make the individual ones just as a trial to post on here,  to see how much more work they were and fiddly to assemble.  I made ones with roasted pears glazing the top pastry with pear syrup, pan fried bananas in brown sugar and rum, mango slices with mango sauce and panfried pineapple slices with lots of vanilla seeds.  All of these little ones make a good presentation served with a sauce on the side.  I think the individual ones have more visual impact but for a no fuss quick impressive dessert the large ones are the ones to go for.  The patience for me is in grilling the inside layers of the pastry to make sure all of the pastry is cooked through and crisp.  And doing this with little disks for the individual tarts can get tiresome.

If you want a bit of summer in your winter mille fueille I think frozen raspberries would work well and using some to them for a raspberry sauce would finish it off nicely.

Roll out your puff pastry not too thin and cut into two rectangles, brush the top with egg wash and sprinkle lots of icing sugar to caramelise to top and bake in a hot oven 200C / 400F / Gas 6,  FAN Oven 180C/ 350F / Gas 4 and bake until well risen and has a golden colour on top 20-30mins.

Cut the two layers horizontally and leave the uncooked sides up, sprinkle with more icing sugar and pre-heat your grill to full.

Make sure you put it quite a distance from the grill, the heat will eventually start to cook the top layer of the pastry, you have to watch it like a hawk and you’re not allowed to answer the phone, it will turn from done to burnt in seconds.

Once the uncooked inside is grilled and cooked if you tap it with you fingernail it will have a crisp hollow sound

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When you have all your layers ready choose your best one for the top layer and start assembling

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Adapt the fruits to what’s best on offer in the season, but there’s also no reason why you can’t use really good quality tin peaches, frozen raspberries.

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Oven roasted pears or poached pears are a great for a winter mille fueille

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You choose whatever type of cream, make the traditional custard or here I used a tub of cream cheese with most of a small tub of creme fraiche and you can leave it there sweeten with a little caster sugar and vanilla or lemon rind.  If you want to make this cream lighter add one beaten egg white until stiff forming peaks and then fold it into the cream spoonful at a time, it will make the cream mousse like.  You can make this cream a few hours ahead in the fridge, if a little of the egg white weeps around the sides of the cream just give the cream a mix and it will amalgamate again.

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For something different sandwich you mille feuille with chocolate mousse.

Mille Feuille

1 pack of puff pastry
an egg and tablespoon of milk beaten well together to use for brushing the pastry
icing sugar to sprinkle generously over the pastries

Your chosen cream for the filling or use a light chocolate mousse recipe, one without using gelatine.

For my cream fillings I made two variations:

250g / 8 oz tub of mascarpone cheese
250g / 8 oz tub of creme fraiche
284 ml / 10 floz carton of double cream whipped until it holds it shape
Some caster sugar
vanilla extract or lemon rind to flavour

Loosen the mascarpone cheese first and start adding the creme fraiche until well incorporated, a spoonful at the time start adding the double cream sweeten to taste with caster sugar and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Second Variations on the Cream

250g / 8 oz tub of cream cheese
250g / 8oz creme fraiche
1 egg white
Some caster sugar
vanillas extract or lemon rind to flavour

Mix the cream cheese and creme fraiche very well with caster sugar to your taste and vanilla extract.  In a separate bowl beat the egg white until it’s stiff holding its shape in stiff peaks and fold into the cream a spoonful at a time using a large spoon or spatula using gentle motion so not to knock the air in the egg white.

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