SweetloreEncyclopedia of World Sweets (534）
Mille-feuille
Mille-feuille
Shattering layers made from laminated dough and cream
Cakes ／ France
When you cut a mille-feuille, you can see layers of pastry and cream alternating, and within each sheet of pastry there are also fine layers. The best-known form is the French pastry in which three sheets of laminated puff pastry sandwich two layers of cream, but some versions stack many even thinner sheets of pastry. Mille means “thousand,” and feuille means “leaf.” The name likens two things to many leaves: the stacked sheets of pastry, and the hundreds of layers that lamination creates within a single sheet.
Cross-section of laminated puff pastry layered with cream (2009, location unknown). Photo: Raphael Labbé / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Laminating butter into thin layers without letting it melt
Butter is layered onto a dough made by kneading flour and water, and the dough is folded and rolled out again and again. During baking, steam forms and pushes the layers of dough apart. In the standard method, the dough encloses the butter. In reverse lamination, butter mixed with flour encloses the water-containing dough. To keep the fat in thin layers, the dough is chilled whenever it warms and softens. Dough that shrinks back after rolling, on the other hand, is rested so that the elasticity created by kneading and rolling can settle. Both steps are necessary: chilling so that the butter does not melt, and resting the rolled-out dough.
Valrhona’s vanilla mille-feuille uses reverse lamination with two four-folds and two three-folds, and the dough is rested overnight before the final three-fold. Another method uses the standard technique with six three-folds. If a single layer of butter is counted as tripling with each three-fold, 3 to the 6th power gives 729 layers. This is a theoretical figure that assumes the dough and fat stay intact through the folding; it does not mean that 729 sheets of equal thickness line up in the baked cross-section. Combining four-folds and three-folds also changes the number of layers, and there is more than one way of folding that leads to fine layers.
An example of a mille-feuille served with strawberries (2021, location unknown). Photo: Gobonobo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Baking the pastry flat and layering it with cream
The pastry is baked into flat sheets rather than allowed to rise high, so that cream can be spread evenly and the layers stacked. Rolling the dough thin, resting it, and placing a baking sheet on top partway through baking are techniques for limiting the rise while baking the pastry until it is fragrant all the way through.
In one example of a vanilla mille-feuille, the dough is rolled out to 2 millimeters, baked, cut into rectangles, and also split in half through its thickness. Piping cream and placing a thin sheet of pastry on top is repeated five times, and the top layer is a sheet of pastry on which powdered sugar has been caramelized with a torch. The pastry is baked, cut, and finished with sugar first, and is layered with cold cream afterwards.
Heating and cooling the cream, and finishing the top
For the cream in this mille-feuille, milk and cream are brought to a boil with vanilla and left to infuse for 10 minutes, then combined with egg yolks, sugar, flour, and cornstarch and brought back to a boil. Butter is added at 60°C, and after the mixture has cooled further, whipped cream is folded in. Heating to thicken the cream and controlling the temperature when adding butter and whipped cream are steps with different purposes.
In another Valrhona recipe, a whipped cream with praline added and a milk chocolate cream are each placed between three sheets of pastry. Tops also vary, from powdered sugar or caramel to white fondant with a brown pattern drawn on it. The flavor of the cream and the finish of the top change both the taste and the appearance.
From 18th-century mille-feuille filled with fruit to layers of cream
The 1733 edition of Vincent La Chapelle’s English-language cookbook “The Modern Cook” bakes thin, round sheets of pastry one at a time and layers them with apricot marmalade, redcurrant and gooseberry jellies, and preserved raspberries. On top goes a sheet of pastry with shapes cut out of it, and an icing of egg white, powdered sugar, and lemon, divided into white, red, and green, is applied in stripes. Compared with the custard-filled versions commonly seen today, it is distinguished by the flavor of preserved fruit and its brightly colored icing.
Regarding Adolphe Seugnot’s shop on Rue du Bac in Paris in 1867, a later tourism article says that the shop made the combination of pastry and custard popular. Pastries bearing the name mille-feuille existed before then, and Seugnot’s shop is said to have popularized a pastry that layers pastry and custard.
The 1872 edition of Urbain Dubois’s “Cuisine de tous les pays” also contains a recipe in which 12 thin sheets of pastry are spread with vanilla bavarois and stacked. The baked sheets are lightly pressed flat, cooled, spread, cut and stacked, sprinkled with chopped pistachios, and chilled on ice. The composition differs by period and maker: some versions sandwich fruit, some use cream, some stack many thin sheets of pastry, and some place two layers of cream between three sheets of pastry.
Pastries around the world that layer pastry and cream
The Dutch tompouce sandwiches a single thick layer of cream between two sheets and covers the top with pink icing. For celebrations connected with the royal family, the icing is orange. Slovenia’s kremna rezina from Bled, a pastry that became a local specialty after the war, places vanilla cream and a thin layer of whipped cream separately between two sheets and is dusted with powdered sugar. Both use two sheets of pastry, but they differ in the color of the icing and in the kinds and layers of cream between the sheets.
Among home-style Napoleon cakes in Russia and Ukraine, one method stacks many thin sheets of pastry, lets them absorb a cream made by cooking eggs, milk, and flour and mixing in butter, and serves the cake the next day. The trimmed edges are crumbled and scattered over the outside. Rather than the lightness of freshly baked pastry, this style is enjoyed for the texture of layers that have softened and melded over time.
Chile’s version with manjar and Iran’s version with rose water
Chile’s torta mil hojas is filled with manjar, made by cooking down milk and sugar. In one recipe from Soprole, a dairy company that supplies products for confectionery, whipped cream, custard, manjar, and raspberry jam are layered between three thin sheets of pastry, and the outside is covered with cream and crushed pastry. Rather than simply repeating a single vanilla layer, it combines the rich sweetness of reduced milk with the acidity of fruit.
Shirini Napoleoni, popular in Iran, is also a related pastry that uses laminated puff pastry and cream. In chef Omid Roustaei’s recipe, custard scented with rose water is filled between baked pastry that has been split horizontally. Whipped cream, crushed pastry, pistachios, and powdered sugar are layered on top, and rose petals are added as decoration. Roustaei also mentions varying the aroma with saffron, orange blossom water, cardamom, and other flavorings. These are not all added together; one aroma is chosen according to preference. While keeping the structure of layered pastry and cream, these pastries incorporate the dairy products and floral aromas favored in each region.
Murakami Kaishindo’s millefeuille and layered sweets in Japan
According to Murakami Kaishindo’s company history, Murakami Mitsuyasu studied in 1870 under Samuel Pere, a Frenchman in Yokohama, and founded the business in 1874. The second-generation owner, Murakami Kazumasa, compiled a French vocabulary notebook for confectionery and studied recipes (ingredient proportions and methods) in the original texts. Today the shop makes a small millefeuille that layers flat sheets of pastry with citron cream. This single item from the shop connects the founder’s training in Yokohama with the next generation’s study of French.
Some Napoleon pies in Japan sandwich strawberries, are decorated on top with fruit and whipped cream, and include a layer of sponge cake inside. These add the acidity of strawberries and the texture of soft sponge. On the other hand, mille crêpes stack supple, thin crêpes and do not have the fine layers of laminated pastry itself. Even though the layered appearance is similar, laminated pastry and crêpes melt in the mouth differently because their doughs are made in different ways.
Glossary
- Manjar
- The name of a sweet confectionery ingredient made by cooking down milk and sugar, used in Chile and other places. It corresponds to dulce de leche.
- Shirini Napoleoni
- A cream pastry with the name “Napoleon,” popular in Iran. Makers vary the number of pastry sheets, the dairy-based cream, and the floral and nut aromas.
- Omid Roustaei
- A chef who shares Iranian culinary culture. He publishes his own Shirini Napoleoni recipe on “The Caspian Chef.”
- Adolphe Seugnot
- A 19th-century Parisian pastry chef. He is associated with the popularity of mille-feuille in 1867.
- Murakami Mitsuyasu / Murakami Kazumasa
- The first and second generations of Murakami Kaishindo. They were involved in acquiring Western confectionery techniques and studying French-language recipes.
- Samuel Pere
- A Frenchman who made confectionery in Yokohama and under whom Murakami Mitsuyasu studied.
- Citron
- The French word for lemon. It is used in names such as citron cream.
- Kremna rezina
- A sliced pastry associated with the shore of Lake Bled in Slovenia, made with two sheets of pastry and layers of vanilla cream and whipped cream.
- Vincent La Chapelle
- An 18th-century French chef. Author of the English edition of “The Modern Cook.”
- Urbain Dubois
- A 19th-century French chef. He wrote about the cuisines of various countries and confectionery techniques.
- Bavarois
- A chilled dessert. Some versions set a cream made with milk, eggs, and other ingredients with gelatin and combine it with whipped cream.
- Laminated puff pastry
- Pastry prepared with alternating layers of dough and fat so that thin layers open up when it is baked.
- Reverse lamination
- A method in which the dough is wrapped in butter mixed with flour and then folded.
- Custard
- A cream made by heating eggs and milk. Custards for confectionery may contain flour or starch.
- Fondant
- An icing made by crystallizing sugar into fine crystals and working it.
- Praline
- A confectionery ingredient made by combining sugar and nuts and grinding them finely into a paste or other form.
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