Raspberry Mille-Feuilles Recipe

By Mélanie Dupuis

Raspberry Mille-Feuilles Recipe

Raspberry Mille-Feuilles Recipe. These bite size desserts are sure to have everyone wanting seconds. 

 

WHAT ARE THEY?

Two small squares of puff pastry sandwiching diplomat cream and fresh raspberries.

 

Time To Make

Preparation: 1 hour 30 minutes

Cooking: 20–40 minutes

Resting: 2 hours

 

Equipment

1–2 mm rolling rods

Fine strainer

Kitchen knife

Piping bag (fluted 8 mm nozzle and plain 10 mm nozzle)

Rolling pin

 

Variations

Replace the vanilla bean with verbena.

 

Advice

Once you have rolled out the puff pastry, lay it on a baking tray lined with baking paper, cover with another sheet of baking paper and refrigerate for 1 hour so it relaxes and doesn’t lose its shape in the following stages.

 

Techniques To Master

Piping – Filling the bag: Put the chosen nozzle in the bag. Fold the top of the bag over your hand. Using a silicone spatula, take the mixture and place it in the bag, scraping with the spatula. Fill to two-thirds maximum to prevent the bag overflowing. Pull the top of the bag back up and give it a quarter turn while pushing the mixture towards the nozzle.

Piping: Hold the bag straight up to form discs, and on an angle for eclairs. Press with one hand, while stabilising and guiding with the other.

Rolling out – Gradually spreading out a pastry dough with a rolling pin, always working away from you. To obtain an even thickness, set a rolling rod of the desired thickness on either side and roll until the rolling pin is resting on the rods.

Whipping cream – Whisk the cream vigorously until it doubles in volume and loses its sheen, becoming matt. It is simultaneously aerated and held together by its fat content, which crystallises around the air bubbles. Use a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, a food processor with the chopping blade or an electric mixer.

Chantilly cream is whipped cream with sugar added.

 

Organisation

4 days before | Make the puff pastry over 3 days (page 10)

1 day before | Cook the puff pastry squares; cover and leave at room temperature.

Make the pastry cream and refrigerate.

4–6 hours before | Caramelise the puff pastry squares. Turn the pastry cream into diplomat cream. Assemble.

 

 

MAKES 30

 

PUFF PASTRY

120 g water

10 g white vinegar

5 g salt

30 g unsalted butter, melted, plus

150 g extra for turning

250 g (1 cups) plain flour

50 g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting

 

DIPLOMAT CREAM

6 g leaf gelatine

65 g egg yolk (about 4–5 eggs)

80 g sugar

35 g cornflour (or custard powder)

300 g full-cream milk

½ vanilla bean

35 g butter

100 g whipping cream (35 per cent fat)

250 g (2 cups) raspberries

 

1 Make the puff pastry. Roll out the pastry thinly, to 1–2 mm, using rolling rods. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Cut the pastry into 60 × 4 cm squares using a kitchen knife.

2 Place the squares on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Cover with a second sheet of baking paper then another baking tray, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the top baking tray to check if the squares are cooked; continue cooking until they are golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

3 To make the diplomat cream, soak the gelatine in cold water. Make a pastry cream following the method on page 52, flavouring the milk with the half vanilla bean. Squeeze out the gelatine and add to the pastry cream off the heat.

4 Preheat the oven to 200°C. Lightly dust the puff pastry squares with the icing sugar using a fine strainer, then bake for 4 minutes, checking every minute until they are evenly caramelised. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

5 To make the diplomat cream, whip the cream, until it completely loses its sheen.

6 Whisk the pastry cream vigorously to loosen it, then add one-third of the whipped cream and whisk vigorously until smooth. Add the remaining whipped cream and gently fold in using a silicone spatula.

7 Transfer the diplomat cream to a piping bag with a plain 10 mm nozzle. Cut 15 of the raspberries in half lengthways. Pipe a dome of diplomat cream on the non-caramelised side of 30 puff pastry squares. Place a half-raspberry on top and push into the cream. Pipe a small dot of cream on the raspberry, then top with a second puff pastry square, caramelised side up.

8 Stand the mille-feuilles on their ends. Pipe a rosette of diplomat cream on each mille-feuille using a piping bag with a fluted 8 mm nozzle. Dip the tops of the remaining raspberries in extra icing sugar, and place on the cream rosettes, sugar side up.

 

PUFF PASTRY

HOW DO THE LAYERS CREATE THE FLAKINESS?

Layering the butter and dough traps the water in the pastry, which evaporates as steam during cooking, but can’t escape. It’s this steam that makes each layer of pastry swell up.

WHAT DOES THE VINEGAR DO?

It makes the pastry slightly acidic, which helps it keep for longer.

WHY DOES THE DOUGH HAVE TO BE RESTED?

When the water is mixed with the flour, it makes the starch grains swell up. The added butter slips between the swollen starch grains, and the flour proteins form a gluten network. During the resting time, this gluten network – which becomes very stretched when the pastry is worked – will relax and give the pastry a less firm texture.

TECHNIQUES TO MASTER

Rolling out – Gradually spreading out a pastry dough with a rolling pin, always working away from you. To obtain an even thickness, set a rolling rod of the desired thickness on either side and roll until the rolling pin is resting on the rods.

Tempering – Tempering dough: crushing and spreading the dough in one movement with the heel of your hand to check if it is smooth; repeat once or twice.

 

 

MAKES 560 G

DOUGH

120 g water

10 g white vinegar

5 g salt

30 g unsalted butter, melted

250 g (1 cups) plain flour

 

FOR TURNING

150 g unsalted butter

 

1 To make the dough, mix the water, vinegar, salt, butter and flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment. Mix at low speed until the mixture is smooth. Roll into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

2 Put the butter between two sheets of baking paper. Tap lightly with a rolling pin to make a 10 cm square about 1 cm thick. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3 Rest the dough at room temperature for 30 minutes. Roll it out into a cross-like flattened diamond shape, leaving it slightly thicker in the centre.

4 Place the butter in the middle. Rest for a few minutes at room temperature, then fold the four corners into the middle, taking care to maintain the same thickness all over. The butter should be firmly enclosed in the dough.

5 Roll the pastry out away from you, as evenly as possible, into a rectangle measuring about 30 cm × 15 cm.

6 Fold the pastry into a ‘wallet’: fold the bottom third towards the middle, then fold the top third over it. Then make an anti-clockwise quarter (90-degree) turn with the folded pastry (with the seam at the right). You have made the first simple turn.

7 To make the second turn, roll out the pastry away from you.

8 Fold it into a wallet again and make an anticlockwise quarter turn. Wrap in plastic wrap and rest in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.

9 Make two more simple turns, then rest in the refrigerator for a further 3–4 hours. Make one or, at most, two more turns before using. You can create gentle indentations with your fingers to indicate the number of turns you have completed.

 

This is an edited extract from The Ultimate Book of Party Food by Melanie Dupuis published by Hardie Grant Books RRP $60 AUD / $65.00 NZD and is available in stores nationally.

Photographer: © PIERRE JAVELLE

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