An essential dessert of French pastry, mille-feuille brings together many techniques such as those of puff pastry or pastry cream.

We find its origins in the 17th century.

And contrary to what you might think, it does not contain 1,000 sheets of dough.

It is one of the classics of French pastry: mille-feuille, also spelled millefeuille.

A gourmet cake, a clever combination of pastry cream and puff pastry, flavored with vanilla.

The recipe is quite technical since it calls for several skills.

You have to know how to make puff pastry, pastry cream and even icing to decorate it all.

Our columnist Olivier Poels tells us about the origins of this dessert and reveals its recipe to us on the program 

Historically Vôtre

 on Europe 1. 

>>

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A success in 1867

The first recipe for a cake similar to a mille-feuille dates back to the 17th century, in one of the works of the French cook François Pierre de la Varenne (1618 - 1678).

The recipe then evokes a similar arrangement but which, at the time, was not flavored with vanilla but with kirch and rum.

This dessert will be reworked by several kitchen professionals before experiencing a "boom" in 1867. Parisians discover it in Adolphe Seugnot's pastry shop, rue du Bac, where mille-feuille is presented as a specialty.

In a few weeks, the noise spread in the capital.

Huge queues form in front of the shop to buy this combination of puff pastry and pastry cream that is a hit. 

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Not a thousand sheets, but 729

The name of this pastry comes from the assembly: three layers and a high number of pastry sheets between each layer of cream.

Contrary to what the name suggests, there are not a thousand but 729 very precisely.

When preparing the puff pastry, the pastry chef makes what are called "turns": he takes the dough, puts in butter, then folds it.

There are a total of six tri-fold steps.

Currently, thanks to other folding techniques, some pastry chefs manage to obtain 2,000 sheets.

Olivier Poels' mille-feuille recipe

  • Ingredients 

A puff pastry, to buy from your pastry chef, in a 5x20 centimeter rectangle

25 centiliters of milk

A vanilla bean

50 grams of sugar

30 grams of cornstarch

An egg

  • The preparation

Boil the milk.

Scrape the vanilla bean to collect the grains and let steep in the milk for at least 15 minutes.

Mix in parallel the sugar, the flour and the egg.

Remove the vanilla pod before bringing the milk to the boil again.

Pour the hot milk over the sugar-flour-egg mixture, stirring occasionally.

The preparation will thicken and the texture will become more and more creamy.

Let cool so that the preparation solidifies and turns into a cream.

Bake the puff pastry, pricking it beforehand to avoid swelling for 20 minutes in an oven at 180 degrees.

Assemble the mille-feuille by alternating three layers of puff pastry and pastry cream.

Sprinkle with icing sugar to finish your preparation.