Mille Feuille is a french dessert means a thousand of leaves refer to number of layers in dough.
Ingredients
For puff pastry
222g/8oz plain flour
1/2tsp salt
250g/9oz unsalted butter cold but not rock hard
150ml ice cold water
Sift the flour and salt into large bowl then put the bowl into fridge for a few minutes to chill (keeping the bowl cold will help you to get better result and create nice layer of pastry.
Meanwhile cut the butter into small cubes
Using round bladed knife, stir the butter into the bowl until each piece is well coated with flour.
Pour in water, then working working quickly , using the knife or scrapper bring everything together to rough dough.
Gather the dough into the bowl using one hand then turn flat sausage without kneading, wrap in clingfilm chill in fridge for 15 minutes.
Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the pastry in one direction until it is bout 1cm thick and 3 times as long as it is wide about 45x15cm/18x6in straighten up sides with your hands now and again and try to keep he top and bottom edge as square as possible.
Fold the bottom third of the pastry up,then the third down, to make a block about 15x15cm 16x6in . It doesnt matter if the pastry isnt exactly the right size the important is corner are nice as square as possible.
Turn the dough so that the open edge is facing to the right,look like page of book, press the edges of pastry again repeating this four times in all to make smooth dough, with buttery streak here and there, if the pastry feels at any point or starts springback when as you roll then cover for 10 minutes before continuing.
Chill the finish pastry for bout an hour ideally overnight before use.
For strawberry and white chocolate mille feuille
Plain flour
3 tbsp castor sugar
Double cream
Vanilla pod
600g strawberries
Small bunch of basil ,leaves picked with few smaller
Zest of lemon
Good quality white chocolate
Scatter more castor sugar over puff pastry and covered with another baking parchment,lay another baking sheet on top bake for 12 to 13 minutes.or until pastry crisp and golden set aside.
To make filling
Tip cream into bowl,with 3tbsp of sugar and vanilla pod/seeds lightly whisk cream just hold it to shape andcst aside . Hull the quarter of strawberries and set aside a few for salad.then cut into 3 or 4 chunks finely shred the basil then fold through the cream
With chopped strawberries and lemon zest then cill in the fridge if needed.
When the pastry is cooled completely trim the edges to form a neat 28x30cm rectangle cut into 3 rectangles to get them precisely the same size , cut one then lay it on the rest of pastry and use as guide to next rectangle then repeat.
To assemble the mille feuille , lay down on rectangle of pastry and half of cream and strawberry mixed flatten the back of spoon , place second rectangle on top gently press down. Finely grate over the white chocolate and top with remaining cream mix, place final layer of pastry press down gently so that filling just start to bulge over edges. Served enjoy
Prepared, posted, tried and tested by All joy’s lovely cooking
