Bouchon Bakery: Mille Feuille

I was about 10 when I had my first mille feuille, shared with my family in a little cafe in Paris…Epcot. I know I know, really now, a theme park? After a re-visit a few years later armed with a bit more pastry know-how, surprisingly, their mille feuille was rather authentic. The patisserie did get a remodel back in 2012 so I’m not sure what the establishment is like now but I hope there is mille feuille for others to experience and fall in love with like I did.

The mille feuille I know has alternating layers of puff and rich pastry cream, with a thin layer of white icing spread on the top puff layer, sometimes with alternating stripes of chocolate icing for an extra flourish. The cookbook’s twist is to garnish with piped whipped cream for lightness. I opted for a cocoa dusting to pair with my chocolate pastry cream filling. Super rich and chocolatey.

Puff pastry looking beautiful. I love the way it shatters, that sound and the smell are all the more reason for homemade puff. I was surprised by how long the baking time was but the book was right on with the timing. The initial bake, completely covered was about 1 hour and 30 min. I did check it 2-3 times in between for color. It was baking evenly both top and bottom so I didn’t feel the need to flip the pan over. Then I removed the top pan and put foil on the ends of the puff and baked for an additional 10 minutes to allow the middle to crisp up and get a bit more color. It was still a bit soft.

Instead of making the long strips per the book, I made mine into individual serving sizes, more typical of a patisserie. They were approximately 4 x 2.25″ rectangles, a bit generous in size but who doesn’t want a little more pastry? One thing to note, I could have probably compressed the puff more by adding more weight onto the sheet pans. I didn’t have quite as much trouble the previous time I made this but my puff was more flaky and bumpy than I would have liked. It should be really compact.

The technique for the pastry cream was interesting. The cream is spread out on a sheet pan, frozen and cut down to the size of the puff strips. Overall I liked this because when it came time to cut and eat it, the pastry cream didn’t splurt out as it normally would with the traditional method of piping strips of pastry cream onto the puff sheets. The plus for piping though is when the layers are stacked, the pastry cream fills in any unevenness in the puff so its pretty visually all around. With the frozen sheets, there could be some gaps in between the layers. Minor detail though in an otherwise successful creation.

Voila! I was very happy with how it turned out. The combination of flaky puff and rich pastry cream was a lovely textural experience. The puff shattered just so right into the cream and I had no trouble devouring the entire thing. The chocolate pastry cream was a bit rich for my taste so I’d keep to plain pastry cream in the future, however it was nice to try something different. C’est tout! Until the next project.