mille-feuille

 

  • A mille-feuille (French pronunciation: [mil fœj], “thousand-sheets”),[notes 1] also known by the names Napoleon in North America,[1][2] vanilla slice in the United Kingdom,
    and custard slice, is a dessert made of puff pastry layered with pastry cream.

  • In French, the first mention[non-primary source needed] of the mille-feuille appears a little later, in 1749, in a cookbook by Menon:[5] To make a mille-feuille cake, you
    take puff pastry, make out of it five cakes of equal size, & of the thickness of two coins, in the last one you shall make a hole in the middle in the shape of a Knight’s cross, regarding the size you will base yourself on the dish that you
    will use for service, bake them in the oven.

  • Philippines[edit] In Philippines, they are called napoleones and are made of two to three layers, with pastry cream or white custard as filling, topped with sugar glaze.

  • Another important distinction of the Italian variety is that it often consists of a layer of puff pastry with layers of sponge cake as well (e.g.

  • In Mainland China, a similar product also marketed as a Napoleon (Nápòlún, or more commonly) varies between regions and individual bakeries, but usually features a top and
    bottom layer of rough puff pastry, typically made with vegetable shortening rather than butter, and a sponge cake and artificial buttercream filling.

  • [18][19] United Kingdom[edit] In the United Kingdom, the pastry is most often called a vanilla slice, cream slice, or a custard slice, but can, on occasion, be named mille-feuille
    or Napoleon on branded products.

  • Several variations exist in Belgium, but in the Netherlands it has achieved an almost iconic status, with very little variation seen in form, size, ingredients and colour
    (always two layers of pastry, nearly always pink glazing, but orange around national festivities).

  • Using traditional puff pastry, made with six folds of three layers, it has 729 layers; with some modern recipes it may have as many as 2,048.

  • When they are baked & cooled, stack them one on the other, the one with the hole on top, & jams between every cake, [sentence unclear, maybe referring to covering all sides
    with jam] & ice them everywhere with white icing so that they appear to be a single piece; you can embellish it with some red currant jelly, candied lemon skins & pistachio, you serve them on a plate.

  • [7] According to Alan Davidson in the Oxford Companion to Food, the invention of the form (but not of the pastry itself) is usually attributed to Szeged, Hungary, where a
    caramel-coated mille-feuille is called ‘Szegediner Torte’.

  • [16] Later, the cake became a standard dessert in Soviet cuisine.

  • It is common in the UK to only use two slices of pastry with a single, thick layer of filling between them.

  • “French Vanilla slice” refers to a similar product without fondant icing.

  • The filling between the layers is cream[clarification needed] whereas whipped cream (a vanilla-infused French Chantilly) is used at the top of the pastry.

  • A French Canadian method of making a mille-feuille uses graham crackers instead of puff pastry, with pudding replacing the custard layer.

  • [10] Variations According to La Varenne, it was earlier called gâteau de mille-feuilles (“cake of a thousand sheets”), referring to the many layers of pastry.

  • In the central regions, milhojas usually have only two or three layers of puff pastry filled with very thick layers of whipped cream or Chantilly.

  • [21][22][23][24] Other[edit] In Latin American milhojas, various layers of puff pastry are layered with confectioner’s sugar on top.

  • [6] During the 19th century, all recipes describe the cake as filled with jam, with the exception of the 1876 recipe by Urbain Dubois, where it is served with Bavarian cream.

  • In France, the pastry called Napoleon is made with two joined layers of pâte feuilletée filled with frangipane.

  • A savory Italian version consists of puff pastry filled with spinach, cheese or pesto, among other things.

  • Nordic countries[edit] In Sweden as well as in Finland, the Napoleonbakelse (Napoleon pastry) is a mille-feuille filled with whipped cream, custard, and jam.

  • [8] Composition Traditionally, a mille-feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry and two layers of crème pâtissière.

  • The many layers of the cake symbolized La Grande Armée.

 

Works Cited

[‘1. The name is also written as millefeuille and mille feuille.
2. Healy, Bruce; Bugat, Paul (1984). Mastering the Art of French Pastry: An Illustrated Course. Woodbury, NY: Barron’s. p. 180.
3. ^ The Art of French Pastry: A Cookbook. Random
House. 3 December 2013. ISBN 978-0307959362.
4. ^ Healy, Bruce; Bugat, Paul (1984). Mastering the Art of French Pastry: An Illustrated Course. Woodbury, NY: Barron’s. p. 181-183.
5. ^ La Chapelle, Vincent (1733). The Modern Cook. London: N. Prevost.
p. 20.
6. ^ Menon (1749). La science du maître d’hôtel cuisinier, avec des observations sur la connaissance & propriétés des alimens. p. 347 – via Bibliothèque nationale de France.
7. ^ Grimod de la Reynière (1810). Almanach des gourmands: servant
de guide dans les moyens de faire …, Volume 7. Joseph Chaumerot. p. 221. Retrieved 26 July 2016 – via Google Books.
8. ^ Dubois, Urbain (1876). Cuisine de tous les pays: études cosmopolites. p. 538 – via Google Books.
9. ^ Davidson, Alan; Jaine,
Tom (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. p. 505. ISBN 978-0-19-211579-9.
10. ^ “Mille-feuille”. Larousse Cuisine. Retrieved 2016-03-11.
11. ^ The Art of French Pastry: A Cookbook. Random House. 3 December 2013. ISBN 978-0307959362.
12. ^
André Guillot, Vraie Cuisine légère, Éditions Flammarion, 1992, republished in 2007 ISBN 978-2-08-202542-3 (in French). The counting of layers was reported in Compte-rendu du Séminaire n°32 de gastronomie moléculaire (December 18, 2003) from the French
Society of Chemistry, see Compte-rendu Archived 2008-12-05 at the Wayback Machine (in French).
13. ^ The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. 1999. p. 205-206. ISBN 978-0-19-211579-9.
14. ^ “Layered chocolate vanilla custard slice
(mille-feuille)”. Food To Love. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
15. ^ “The Best Krémes in Budapest, Hungary”. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
16. ^ Jump up to:a b «Вонзаете вилку в сладкий пирог и – его имя Наполеон!» из статьи «Клятва
при гробе Господнем. Русская быль XV века. Сочинения Н. Полевого. 1832». А. А. Бестужев-Марлинский. 1833. (in Russian) -Stick a fork in a sweet cake, and its name is Napoleon! from the article Oath at the Holy Sepulchre. Russian true stories in the
15th century. Works by N. Polevoy. 1832. Alexander Bestuzhev. 1833.
17. ^ Science-et-vie.com, Guerres Histoire (2017-06-20). “Le gâteau Napoléon – Guerres & Histoire”. guerreshistoire.science-et-vie.com (in French). Retrieved 2023-02-01.
18. ^
П. В. Абатуров; et al. (1955). М. О. Лифшиц (ed.). Кулинария. Москва: Госторгиздат, Министерство пищевой промышленности СССР. p. 763. (in Russian) – P. V. Abaturov; et al. (1955). M. O. Lifschitz (ed.). Cookery. Moscow: Gostorgizdat, USSR Ministry
of Food Industry. p. 763.
19. ^ “napoleonskage”. Ordbog over det danske sprog (in Danish).
20. ^ “napoleonskake”. Det Norske Akademis ordbok (in Norwegian).
21. ^ “Custard slice”. BBC Food.
22. ^ Healy, Bruce; Bugat, Paul (1984). Mastering
the Art of French Pastry: An Illustrated Course. Woodbury, NY: Barron’s. p. 180.
23. ^ The Art of French Pastry: A Cookbook. Random House. 3 December 2013. ISBN 978-0307959362.
24. ^ “Napoleons”. King Arthur Baking.
25. ^ “Napoleon recipe”.
Martha Stewart.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pgordon/14266093711/’]