Caramelized millefeuille
Three disks of rough puff pastry layered with vanilla diplomate cream and raspberry jam. The pastry bakes under a sheet pan, which keeps the layers flat and even, and the top disk gets a crust of powdered caramel.
- Makes
- 2 millefeuilles (16 cm)
- Total
- 2,779 g
- Butter
- 80% of the flour
- Layers
- 243 of butter, on paper
The layers
Rough puff is the quick way to puff pastry: the butter goes into the dough in pieces instead of one block, then the dough is rolled and folded.
The cold dry butter goes into the dough in pieces and is only briefly mixed, so it stays in lumps.
Each time the dough is rolled, the lumps flatten into streaks, and each letter fold stacks them. Five folds, with 10 minutes in the refrigerator before each.
On paper that makes 243 layers of butter. Because the butter started as lumps, the real layers are patchier and less even.
Steam from the water in the dough and the butter lifts the layers apart. Rough puff rises less, and less evenly, than classic puff.
Why dry butter
- Butter in the USAt least 80% fat by law, about 17% water
- Dry butter for the layersAbout 84% fat, 14% water. 400 g here
Dry butter (beurre sec) has less water. It stays firm yet pliable when cold, so it rolls into one thin sheet instead of cracking or smearing into the dough, and it does not soften the dough it touches. In the US, use a European-style butter at 82% or more, or 84% laminating butter from a bakery supplier.
Rough puff pastry
| Ingredient | Grams | Baker’s % |
|---|---|---|
| 500 g | 100% | |
| 10 g | 2% | |
| 250 g | 50% | |
| 4 g | 0.8% | |
| 400 g | 80% | |
| Total | 1,164 g |
- Dissolve the salt and vinegar in the water.
- Add the flour and the cold dry butter and mix briefly with the dough hook, leaving the butter in pieces.
- Roll the dough into a rectangle and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
- Give it one single (letter) fold, then refrigerate for 10 minutes.
- Repeat the fold and rest until you have given 5 single folds.
- Keep the dough in the refrigerator.
Shaping and baking
| Ingredient | Grams | |
|---|---|---|
| 90 g | ||
| 30 g | ||
| Total | 120 g |
- Cook the water and sugar into a syrup, then on to a caramel.
- Pour the caramel onto parchment paper, let it cool, then grind it to a powder in a food processor.
- Roll the puff pastry 2.5 mm thick into 2 rectangles of about 40 × 50 cm.
- Prick the pastry all over.
- Cover it with a sheet pan and bake for about 35 minutes at 180 °C (350 °F).
- While the pastry is still hot, cut three 16 cm disks for each millefeuille.
- Sprinkle one disk for each millefeuille with the powdered caramel and caramelize it for a few minutes at 200 °C (400 °F).
Diplomate cream
| Ingredient | Grams | % of milk |
|---|---|---|
| 390 g | 100% | |
| 1 | ||
| 130 g | 33% | |
| 143 g | 37% | |
| 31 g | 7.9% | |
| 8 g | 2.1% | |
| 48 g | 12% | |
| 390 g | 100% | |
| Total | 1,140 g |
- Bloom the gelatin in the water.
- Warm the milk with the split, scraped vanilla pod.
- Whisk the yolks with the sugar until pale, then mix in the custard powder.
- Whisk in part of the hot milk.
- Cook everything together, whisking, until the cream thickens and then loosens again.
- Off the heat, mix in the bloomed gelatin.
- Chill the cream quickly, then whisk it smooth and warm it slightly.
- Whip the heavy cream to soft peaks and fold it into the cream base in 3 additions.
- Use the diplomate cream right away.
Raspberry jam
| Ingredient | Grams | % of raspberries |
|---|---|---|
| 90 g | 67% | |
| 135 g | 100% | |
| Total | 225 g |
- Cook the raspberries with the sugar until the jam is as thick as you like.
- Chill quickly.
Finishing
| Ingredient | Grams | |
|---|---|---|
| 60 g | ||
| 30 g | ||
| 30 g | ||
| 10 g | ||
| Total | 130 g |
- With a 14 mm round tip, pipe even dots of diplomate cream over a puff pastry disk.
- Soften the raspberry jam and pipe a fine spiral of it over the cream.
- Set a second puff pastry disk on top and repeat the cream and jam.
- Finish with the caramelized disk, then decorate with the decoration sugar and a few red fruits.
For bakers in the US
- All-purpose flour (T65)
- French type 65 flour; in the US, an unbleached all-purpose flour
- Laminating butter (84% fat)
- Laminating or sheet butter, about 84% fat
- Custard powder
- A cornstarch-based mix with flavor and color, such as Bird’s
- Diplomate cream
- Pastry cream set with gelatin and lightened with whipped cream
- Redcurrants
- Red currants
