Mille Feuille with Crème Pâtissière- Daring Bakers Challenge October 2012

Blog-checking lines:
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!

Fancy Schmancy...
Gateau de Mille Feuille ...The cake of a thousand layers...

A cake is it???
The minute it starts raining French...it becomes haute cuisine. Yes,I know my french,studied it for four years...what I still retain is the modus operandi to make it seem Fancy...
I can still read and understand spoken french ,only if the speaker condescends and attempts to speak to me as if speaking to a little child.
But my accent and cuss words vocabulary can never fail me!
That ,I retain!

This fabulously buttery and vanilla-"ey" and creamy concoction is what was set as the daring bakers challenge for this month.
The minute I saw the challenge ,I knew ,I wanted to do it ,like yesterday...
I love puff pastry,that butter melting and the aromas just wafting all around my kitchen...warmth just oozing from the baking tray.

The puff pastry does not need any accompaniment.
A few sprinkles of seeds ...poppy maybe and we are done.
The Gateau de Mille Feuille is just for the challenge.
The rest of the puff pastry we will use to make chicken vol -au- vents and some desi Bakerkhani.I have made vol- au -vents  with mushroom , but chicken beckons...
Any ways the french connection...my class mate from Alliance Francaise de Delhi(no,I do know my spellings, but do not know how to get the accents on blogger template) Vipul Rikhi is coming out with his first book in English called the 2012 Nights. I'm a reader alright, but for me what makes sense is crime,crimes of passion, money ,espionage, bombs, wars and the like.
But because this is written by Vipul, I am definitely going to buy the book.

Serenaded by Scheherazade ,Arabian Nights style.
Back to the Gateau de Mille Feuille or Napolean.According to Wiki...(गातो द   मील फै )

It was earlier called gâteau de mille-feuilles (English: cake of a thousand sheets), referring to the many layers of pastry. Using traditional puff pastry, made with six folds of three layers, it has 729 layers; with some modern recipes it may have as many as 2,048.

The variant name of Napoleon appears to come from napolitain, the French adjective for the Italian city of Naples, but altered by association with the name of Emperor Napoleon I of France. The Larousse Gastronomique does not mention the Napoléon, although a gateau napolitain is listed, with a note that while the cake itself is not often seen, small biscuits known as fonds napolitains are still made, decorated with butter cream or conserves.

The traditional mille-feuille is filled with a vanilla pastry cream (crème pâtissière) and is also known as a Napoleon (thought to refer to Naples in Italy rather than the diminutive French emperor), a custard slice or a vanilla slice. It’s often topped with royal icing and distinctive chocolate squiggles, and is popular the world over.

I made the puff pastry and a creme patisserie-only this time I followed the directions from the daring bakers.

Thick ,slurpy and glossy cream piped into small rosettes...just like the ones I saw on Masterchef Australia.

The royal icing would have made the Mille Feuille too sweet...the contrast of the salty puff pastry and the vanilla flavoured sweet creme patissiere...awesome!

Fancy indeed.All the stuff came from my pantry ...just took a tremendous amount of hard work.

The best bit is the photograph.

Now I can figure out how  changes in aperture speed change the pictures...

Lets get down to the making of the puff pastry and the vanilla cream.You can go egg free/egg less...but the egg makes a difference.

for the 

Mille Feuille Daring Bakers Challenge October 

2012...

you need

Puff Pastry

1 3/4 cup plain flour
1 tsp salt
55 gms or 1/4 cup chilled butter diced
ice cold water to knead the dough
egg white to glaze


Le Beurrage

1 cup or 200 gms butter at room temperature
3 1/2 tbsp plain flour

Crème Pâtissière

2 cups Milk

4 eggs 

4 egg yolks

1/4 cup cornflour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 cup or 55 gm butter

100 gms whipped cream dairy/non dairy

Long drawn process, that requires a tremendous amount of effort.I only hope I have expended the same number of calories in the making of the Mille Feuille that I have eaten...

Well, one lives in hope.

Sin, is a different matter altogether!

Start with the beurrage(In french-butter is beurre -बर्र ).Whisk the soft butter and the flour till well blended.

Place it on a piece of cling film -all mixed.

And shape into a  5 inch square and pop into the fridge to chill.I froze it.

Play safe.

The flour and the diced butter and salt(if you are using salted amul butter-use only 1/2 tsp salt).

Mix the butter into the flour like bread crumbs.

Slowly adding the cold water, knead into a firm but not hard dough. Let it rest 5-10 minutes.

Sprinkle some flour on the worktop and roll out the dough into a 15 cm square.Well, almost.

By now the beurrage should be hard enough.And square!

Place it on the dough and wrap the dough around the beurrage like an envelope.

Next step...

You can chill the dough now or roll and then chill. Don't attempt this in the middle of the summer or you will be repairing it in front of the AC.

Lightly pat the dough with your rolling pin...I banged it a bit, to help the beurrage to spread evenly.

Roll out to a rectangle and then fold.

Divide the dough into three parts mentally, fold first part over the center and the second part over the folded part.

Wrap in film.The beurrage may begin to leak, don't worry...slip the leaking butter back in.That is why the beurrage needs to be set properly.

In the fridge for 30 minutes.

Out, Roll into one more rectangle, this time along the breadth, fold and wrap and chill.

Repeat the process until you have done 6 rolls and folds in all.

That is 3 or 4 folds times 243 folds.

Wow!

The math!

You can stow this till the pastry cream is cold enough to use.

I did half the recipe of the cream.I have savoury plans for the puff pastry.

Set 1 1/2 cups of the milk to boil along with the sugar.

In another bowl, blend the remaining milk,the cornflour(I used Brown and Polson custard powder-thus the yellow colour-no cornflour at home) and  the eggs and egg yolks.

You can save the whites for the royal icing.Find the recipe here.

When the eggs and corn flour are blended, pour some of the boiling milk into the mix , whisking all the time. I use my hand blender.Once the mix is emulsified-a minute or so...pour the entire stuff back into the simmering milk, whisking all the time.

In about 3-4 minutes the custard thickens.Keep whisking till the raw taste disappears.Remove from the stove top.

Whisk to cool the the custard and pour into a bowl.Place a piece of film on the custard,so that there is no skin on the custard. Chill.

Ready to use the next day.

Cut out 1/4 of the puff pastry and place on a flour dusted work top.Layers...

A little force and guide the dough to  a rectangle 1/8th an inch thick.I did 1/4th the first time, too thick.So you can do midway.Roll as thick as a parantha bread.

Gently though, or all the beurrage will pop out.Keep the shape and keep the faith.

Cut out the edges, 3 pieces of puff pastry per serving, equal size.A ruler will help.

Oven should be heating at 200C/400F.
Place the pieces of pastry onto the tray and prick with a fork.
Brush with the egg white and pop into the oven for 25 minutes.

Baking butter and flour and the sizzle will tie you to the oven...the aromas...the aromas...

WOW!

When done, remove to a wire rack.

Be careful, most of it may disappear before you douse it with the pastry cream....save 6 pieces.
I had to hide them...

Now the cream.

I found the custard a bit too thick, so I whipped the custard and whipped in some cream.

You can reduce the amount of corn flour and skip the cream.Whip to a glossy pipe -able consistency and set aside.

Piping bag, cream in...

First layer...
Little rosettes...

Second layer...

more rosettes...

wow ...precarious..the camera was still charging..
Come on- don't do a jealous -like the Leaning Tower of Pisa act...
third layer...
More rosettes...
A prayer...and the camera...
Aperture...manual settings...shutter speed...
Got it!!!

I could not find the cocoa in my monologue...I dusted icing sugar, which was obviously not visible over a white plate...

But so worth the effort none the less.

The recipe was Moroccan, I read!

So is this around the world in 80 recipes???

Another month ,another fear busted!

A labour of love...

I am never asking my friendly neighbourhood baker for puff pastry again.

What about you???

So what are you baking today???