Mille-Feuille

Want to make your kitchen look like a Parisienne pastry shop window? Make mille-feuille. Featuring layers of crisp, flakey puff pastry and smooth vanilla pastry cream, these delicate desserts are as stunning to look at as they are beautiful to eat. Read on for tips for how to make them.

The puff pastry layers:
Since the name “mille-feuille” is French for “thousand leaves,” layers of beautifully golden brown puff pastry are key here. Unless you have several days, a heavily air conditioned-kitchen, and a lot of butter to use, I don’t recommend making your own puff pastry here; store-bought brands such as Dufour or Pepperidge Farm will be just fine.

As with any puff pastry recipe, it’s important to thaw the pastry gradually in the refrigerator overnight and keep the pastry cold while you’re rolling out and cutting it. If the pastry becomes too warm, it will pull out of shape, and you’ll lose the precision of the pastry rectangles. This will make the assembled mille-feuille look less tidy when assembled—though they’ll still be delicious. I also recommend chill the pastry before baking; 15 minutes in the refrigerator should be just fine.

Weighing the puff pastry down with a second baking sheet while it cooks might seem counterintuitive (it’s puff pastry—don’t you want it to puff?), but there’s solid reasoning behind it. The second baking sheet compresses the pastry as it bakes, forcing it into flat, even (but just as flaky!) layers, perfect for supporting the pastry cream filling. Don’t go rogue and try to leave that second baking sheet off: Trust me when I say it won’t work.

The cream filling:
Mille-feuille are classically filled with creme diplomat, which is essentially a pastry cream (stovetop vanilla pudding) that has whipped cream folded into it. If you’ve never made a pastry cream, now’s the time to try. Made from seven basic ingredients (that you probably have already at home), it takes less than 10 minutes to make and is WORLDS better than any packaged vanilla pudding you’ve ever tasted. Taste it once and you’ll never go back.

The assembly:
Assembling and decorating these mille-feuille can be as simple as you like. I generally prefer to pipe my filling because it (actually!) feels easier to me, but if you prefer you can spread the filling over the pastry with a butter knife or an offset spatula.

Classically, these mille-feuille are topped with white and brown frosting in a “feathered” pattern. This is a surprisingly simple technique that involves piping strips of cocoa icing stripes across the still-wet white icing, then dragging a toothpick back and forth to create the chevron or “feathered” appearance. I was actually shocked at how dead easy this was the first time I did it, and I promise that if you attempt it, you’ll be truly delighted at how gorgeous it looks. But if you don’t have the time or want to keep it simple, you can also just ice the tops in plain white.

Make ahead:
Mille-feuille are best eaten the same day they’re assembled, since the pastry cream filling will begin to seep into the puff pastry and make it soggy as it sits; however, both the puff pastry layers and the pastry cream (without the whipped cream) can be made up to 1 day in advance. Either leave the pastry cream wrapped in plastic wrap on the sheet tray or transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate. The puff pastry rectangles, once they’re cooled, can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature.