Mille-feuille

This super flakey and delicious Mille-feuille is a traditional French pastry with a twist. Chef Christophe Rull's recipe is composed of thin and buttery puff pastry layers, sweet vanilla bean pastry cream, and topped with an airy vanilla chantilly cream.

Similar to a Napoleon, Christophe decided to add a chantilly cream on top instead of the traditional chocolate icing to give this pastry an all-around airy bite. It pairs great with the smooth pastry cream and flakey puff pastry layers. The layers are crispy enough to stand on their side to show all the components in a sophisticated way.

Mille-feuille Ingredients

Puff Pastry Ingredients

High Gluten Flour: For this recipe we want to use high gluten flour because the more gluten we have the more elasticity will have so the layers can form properly.

Pastry Cream Ingredients

Vanilla Bean: This recipe is very vanilla based, therefore we want an intense vanilla flavor. Using vanilla beans will give us the flavor and look we want, but if you dont have any on hand I recommend using vanilla paste. You can get Neilson Massey vanilla beans or paste.

Vanilla Chantilly Cream Ingredients

Puff Pastry Step-By-Step

1. Place the bread flour, salt, cold water, and melted butter into the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment.  Mix on low speed until everything is just combined. I'm using a high gluten flour (bread flour) to add more structure to the dough, you can also use all-purpose flour.
2. Now add your cold, diced butter. Make sure to not over-mix, we want to see pieces of butter in the dough (this will create the flakiness we want). 
3. Use your hands to knead your dough just a little bit to combine it all together.
4. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
5. Once your dough is chilled, flour your table, take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out in a long rectangle that is about 24" long and 8" wide.
6. Give it the first book fold by folding each end towards the middle making sure the ends meet. 
7. Do your second book fold by folding the dough in half along the seam and closing the ends like a book. (Hence the term book fold.) Turn it a quarter of a turn.
8. Repeat the same process once more by rolling out your dough to do a second book fold. If your dough is bouncing back at the edges and is not rolling out easily, your gluten needs to relax. Wrap the dough and put it back in the refrigerator for an hour and try again. Also if your dough is too soft and warm, put your dough back in the fridge for 30 minutes.
9. Once your second book fold is completed, wrap and rest your dough for 30 to 60 minutes in the fridge.
10. Once your dough is chilled, cut it in half. This recipe will make 8 mille-feuille, but most sheet pans will only be able to fit enough puff pastry dough for 4 at a time.
11. With your first half of the dough, flour your table and roll the dough to the size of the sheet pan you will use to bake on. I'm using a 9"x13" sheet pan and am rolling the dough to ⅛" thick.
12. Trim the edges of your dough with a knife. Make sure to cut straight up and down so that it doesn't seal the edges of the layers.
13. Using your rolling pin, roll your dough onto the back side of your sheet pan upside down.
14. Use a docker or a fork to poke small holes in the dough to avoid the dough to over develop in the oven.
15. Place a piece of parchment paper on top of the dough, then place another sheet pan right side up on top. This will make sure your dough remains flat in the oven.
16. Bake at 360°F for 20-30 minutes until the edges are golden brown. While your puff pastry is cooling, make your pastry cream.

Pastry Cream Step-By-Step

1. Place your milk, scraped vanilla bean, and half of your sugar in a medium-sized pot over medium heat. Bring it to a boil.
2. Add your egg yolks, the other half of the sugar, and the cornstarch to a separate bowl.
3. Whisk your yolk mixture together to form a ribbon texture. 
4. Once your milk mixture comes to a boil, pour some of the milk into the yolk mixture and whisk together. This is called tempering your yolks. 
5. Pour the yolk mixture back into the pot and boil everything for about 1 minute while constantly whisking. 
6. Pour your pastry cream into a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap touching the cream to avoid forming a skin. Refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes before using it to let everything set up.  

Vanilla Bean Chantilly Cream Step-By-Step

1. Add your cream and scraped vanilla bean into a mixing bowl.
2. Strain your cream and vanilla mix by pouring the bowl over a strainer into the bowl of your stand mixer. This will remove the fibers of the vanilla bean while keeping all the good flavor.
3. Add in your powdered sugar.
4. Mix everything together on medium-high speed until you reach stiff peaks. You want it to be stable, but not curdled. Use it right away or place it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

Assembling The Mille-feuille

1. Trim the edges of your puff pastry with a serrated knife.
2. Cut the dough into 1 ½ inches by 4 inch rectangles. (PRO TIP: Use a ruler to ensure you cut straight edges.)
3. Prepare a piping bag with a medium round tip. Fill your piping bag with the pastry cream.
4. Pipe 3 lines of pastry cream in rows to cover your entire layer of puff pastry. Pro-tip: at the end of the piping, stop squeezing and press down to have clean lines.
5. Place a rectangle of puff pastry on top and repeat the process.
6. OPTIONAL: Dust a generous amount of powdered sugar on your top layer of puff pastry. Torch it to caramelize the sugar.
7. Prepare a piping bag with a St. Honore metal tip (or you can use a rose tip) and fill with your chantilly cream.
8. Carefully flip your Mille-feuille onto their side. You can leave them flat if you'd like but this way looks fancier.
9. Pipe your chantilly cream using a back and forth motion with your hand.
10. Decorate however you'd like. Chef Christophe topped his with raspberries! These are best served within 24 hours of making to preserve crispness. They tend to get soggy past this due to the puff pastry soaking up the moisture from the puff pastry.

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