Mille-feuille: Layers of Airy Decadence
HELLO! Today, we're going to talk about Mille-feuille. Pronounced as "MEEL-FWAY", this French pastry is turning heads as everyone's newest favorite dessert. A mille-feuille is composed of several interchanging layers of puff pastry and pastry cream. The end result is a bundled lusciousness of cream and puff in each bite. The name itself, in English, means "A thousand leaves" to signify all its overlapping sheets of goodness.
FUN FACT: The first known version of the mille-feuille was documented in a recipe book called Le Cuisinier François by a fine bro named François Pierre La Varenne in 1651. Yes, this dessert is ANCIENT. It's older than the United States.
A typical mille-feuille consists of alternating sheets of puff pastry (3 layers) and pastry cream (2 layers). Traditionally, a mille-feuille will be dusted with powdered sugar but a modern mille-feuille will often have an extra top layer of icing.
A fresh mille-feuille is the best type of mille-feuille, as it will be flaky. On the other hand, a mille-feuille that has been out for a while will be soggy as the cream will have soaked into the flakes. This is also known as a sad mille-feuille. A sad mille-feuille will make you sad when you eat it.
The picture shown above is the mille-feuille (with bourbon vanilla) we got in Paris at Le Violon d'Ingres. I tried to make a quick summary of how to make this dessert but it turned out to be longer than I would have liked. So, if you want to make this dessert for yourself, your friends, or for me, you should take advantage of the links below!
If you're interested in making it yourself, here are a few recipes:
Ricardo Cuisine - Original: Link
BBC Good Food - Strawberry and White Chocolate: Link
Taste.com - Raspberry and Custard Cream: Link
Or, if you prefer to go straight to eating it, here are some restaurants/bakeries that sell this dessert: