A thousand times Julia.

Okay...so yesterday, I got a little bit big for my britches.

In my perusal of all cook books French (of which I have 3 - and not one of them by Julia Child.) to find something suitable to make in honor of Julia Child's birthday, I stumbled upon a recipe for Strawberry Millefeuille.  Millefeuille, in French, means a thousand leaves, which I guess is in reference to the puff pastry it's made out of puffing up and looking like a thousand layers of flaky pastry goodness.  The picture in the book looked pretty and summery and light and it just so happened I had puff pastry in my freezer; it also didn't call for a pound of butter, so I figured I was in business.

I got to work thawing my pastry and reading and re-reading the recipe for Creme Patissiere, which is some sort of French cooked creamy custard filling-type thing.  It didn't look too difficult and aside from the 6 egg yolks it called for, nothing too out of the ordinary in the ingredient list, either.  I gathered my ingredients and got to work.  The creme patissiere calls for mixing egg yolks and sugar, then adding flour and cornstarch and then heating up milk, more sugar and some vanilla to pour into the egg mixture.  All went well, milk came just to a boil and I added it to the egg mixture.  It turned lumpy like the recipe said it would, so I continued to beat all of my frustrations out into that creme patissiere and it came together into a smooth consistency, if a little bit thick.

Okay, a lot thick.

Okay, really, really thick and not so creamy.  But I put it into a clean bowl, stuck some plastic wrap over it and shoved it in the fridge to cool.

And cool it did, for about 5 hours, into a very thick mess that didn't look so much like the creamy picture in the book.  But I carried forth, after all, my kids were expecting something great for dessert.  Something French.  I beat the whipping cream, and tried to soften my creme patissiere, finally resorting to putting it into the mixing bowl of my stand mixer with the whisk attached to soften it up a little more.  When it looked about as good as it was going to get, I folded in the whipped cream and, honestly, it didn't look too terrible and it tasted great.

I assembled the layers and the strawberries and took some pictures.  Finn, as you can see, likes to be up in my business any time I'm doing anything that requires somewhat of a steady hand.  And also, apparently powdered sugar looks just like snow, and so his monster truck had to take a drive through it.  The teeny-tiny tread marks would have been cute if I wasn't already slightly annoyed by the thick filling and fading evening light.

I rehashed the details of the dessert with Uriah when he got home from work to try to figure out why my creme patissiere was so thick and unruly.  We concluded that I'd probably just overcooked it a little bit and went to bed.  But I couldn't stop thinking about that dang creme.

And then, today, the light bulb went off as I was typing the recipe out for this blog post.  It was the flour!  Of course!  The recipe calls for 1/4 OUNCE of flour in the creme patissiere, not 1/4 CUP, which is what I put in!  I mentally slapped my forehead, except it wasn't a mental slap, I really did hit myself.  I will never make that mistake again, mostly because I highlighted the word ounce in my cookbook!

My only other regret is that I didn't stick a candle in the Strawberry Millefeuille and have my kids sing Happy Birthday to Julia Child.  There's always next year...

A Little Taste of…France, copyright 2003
Serves 6

• 1 lb.-7 oz. Puff pastry
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• ½ quantity crème patissiere (recipe to follow)
• ½ cup whipping cream
• 10 ½ oz strawberries, cut into quarters
• confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about ¼ inch thick. Roll the pastry around the rolling pin, then unroll onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.  Leave in the fridge for 15 minutes.

To make the syrup, put 5 tablespoons sugar and ¾ cup water in a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

Cut out three 12x5-inch rectangles* from the pastry and place them on a large baking tray.  Prick with a fork, cover with a sheet of baking paper and place  a second baking tray on top to prevent pastry from rising unevenly.  Bake for 6 minutes, then remove the top baking tray and paper.  Brush the pastry with the syrup (you will not use all of the syrup.) and bake for another 6 minutes, or until golden on top.  Cool on a wire rack.

Whisk the crème patissiere.  Whip the cream and fold into the crème patissiere.  Spread half of this over one of the pastry rectangles and top with half of the strawberries.  Place a second layer of pastry on to p and spread with remaining cream and strawberries.  Cover with the last layer of pastry and dust with confectioners’ sugar to serve**.

Crème Patissiere

• 6 egg yolks
• ½ cup sugar, divided
• ¼ cup cornstarch
• ¼ oz all-purpose flour
• 2 ¼ cups milk
• 1 vanilla pod***
• ½ oz butter

Whisk together the egg yolks and half of the sugar until pale and creamy.  Sift in the cornstarch and flour and mix together well.

Put the milk, remaining sugar and vanilla pod in a saucepan.  Bring just to the boil then strain over the egg yolk mixture, stirring continuously.  Pour back into a clean saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring constantly – it will be lumpy at first but will become smooth as you stir.  Boil for 2 minutes, then stir in the butter and leave to cool.  Transfer to a clean bowl, lay plastic wrap on the surface to prevent a skin forming and refrigerate for up to 2 days.

*A box of puff pastry can be found in the frozen pie shell section at the grocery store – two puff pastries come in a box.  This recipe only uses one.  Store the other one back in the freezer to use for something else.  It comes folded in thirds, and for a minute I figured I’d just cut where the folds were, but that made sort of small puff pastry layers, so I did measure mine and found I had to roll it out a bit to get the proper dimensions.  Work fast, you want to get it back into the fridge to chill, and don't roll too much or it won't get very puffy.

**I put the finished millefeuille  in the refrigerator to firm up for about 20 minutes after I made it, but it really is something you want to eat the same day because it gets a little soft by day 2.  Still good, just slightly mushy.

***Vanilla pods are damn expensive.  Someday I may close my eyes tightly and shell over the cash just to see if using a vanilla pod makes a huge difference in a recipe.  So far, my frugal self just adds about a teaspoon or so of vanilla when it calls for a vanilla pod.  Just make sure you use pure vanilla extract, not that imitation crap.  

Okay...so yesterday, I got a little bit big for my britches.

In my perusal of all cook books French (of which I have 3 - and not one of them by Julia Child.) to find something suitable to make in honor of Julia Child's birthday, I stumbled upon a recipe for Strawberry Millefeuille.  Millefeuille, in French, means a thousand leaves, which I guess is in reference to the puff pastry it's made out of puffing up and looking like a thousand layers of flaky pastry goodness.  The picture in the book looked pretty and summery and light and it just so happened I had puff pastry in my freezer; it also didn't call for a pound of butter, so I figured I was in business.

I got to work thawing my pastry and reading and re-reading the recipe for Creme Patissiere, which is some sort of French cooked creamy custard filling-type thing.  It didn't look too difficult and aside from the 6 egg yolks it called for, nothing too out of the ordinary in the ingredient list, either.  I gathered my ingredients and got to work.  The creme patissiere calls for mixing egg yolks and sugar, then adding flour and cornstarch and then heating up milk, more sugar and some vanilla to pour into the egg mixture.  All went well, milk came just to a boil and I added it to the egg mixture.  It turned lumpy like the recipe said it would, so I continued to beat all of my frustrations out into that creme patissiere and it came together into a smooth consistency, if a little bit thick.

Okay, a lot thick.

Okay, really, really thick and not so creamy.  But I put it into a clean bowl, stuck some plastic wrap over it and shoved it in the fridge to cool.

And cool it did, for about 5 hours, into a very thick mess that didn't look so much like the creamy picture in the book.  But I carried forth, after all, my kids were expecting something great for dessert.  Something French.  I beat the whipping cream, and tried to soften my creme patissiere, finally resorting to putting it into the mixing bowl of my stand mixer with the whisk attached to soften it up a little more.  When it looked about as good as it was going to get, I folded in the whipped cream and, honestly, it didn't look too terrible and it tasted great.

I assembled the layers and the strawberries and took some pictures.  Finn, as you can see, likes to be up in my business any time I'm doing anything that requires somewhat of a steady hand.  And also, apparently powdered sugar looks just like snow, and so his monster truck had to take a drive through it.  The teeny-tiny tread marks would have been cute if I wasn't already slightly annoyed by the thick filling and fading evening light.

I rehashed the details of the dessert with Uriah when he got home from work to try to figure out why my creme patissiere was so thick and unruly.  We concluded that I'd probably just overcooked it a little bit and went to bed.  But I couldn't stop thinking about that dang creme.

And then, today, the light bulb went off as I was typing the recipe out for this blog post.  It was the flour!  Of course!  The recipe calls for 1/4 OUNCE of flour in the creme patissiere, not 1/4 CUP, which is what I put in!  I mentally slapped my forehead, except it wasn't a mental slap, I really did hit myself.  I will never make that mistake again, mostly because I highlighted the word ounce in my cookbook!

My only other regret is that I didn't stick a candle in the Strawberry Millefeuille and have my kids sing Happy Birthday to Julia Child.  There's always next year...

A Little Taste of…France, copyright 2003
Serves 6

• 1 lb.-7 oz. Puff pastry
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• ½ quantity crème patissiere (recipe to follow)
• ½ cup whipping cream
• 10 ½ oz strawberries, cut into quarters
• confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about ¼ inch thick. Roll the pastry around the rolling pin, then unroll onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.  Leave in the fridge for 15 minutes.

To make the syrup, put 5 tablespoons sugar and ¾ cup water in a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

Cut out three 12x5-inch rectangles* from the pastry and place them on a large baking tray.  Prick with a fork, cover with a sheet of baking paper and place  a second baking tray on top to prevent pastry from rising unevenly.  Bake for 6 minutes, then remove the top baking tray and paper.  Brush the pastry with the syrup (you will not use all of the syrup.) and bake for another 6 minutes, or until golden on top.  Cool on a wire rack.

Whisk the crème patissiere.  Whip the cream and fold into the crème patissiere.  Spread half of this over one of the pastry rectangles and top with half of the strawberries.  Place a second layer of pastry on to p and spread with remaining cream and strawberries.  Cover with the last layer of pastry and dust with confectioners’ sugar to serve**.

Crème Patissiere

• 6 egg yolks
• ½ cup sugar, divided
• ¼ cup cornstarch
• ¼ oz all-purpose flour
• 2 ¼ cups milk
• 1 vanilla pod***
• ½ oz butter

Whisk together the egg yolks and half of the sugar until pale and creamy.  Sift in the cornstarch and flour and mix together well.

Put the milk, remaining sugar and vanilla pod in a saucepan.  Bring just to the boil then strain over the egg yolk mixture, stirring continuously.  Pour back into a clean saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring constantly – it will be lumpy at first but will become smooth as you stir.  Boil for 2 minutes, then stir in the butter and leave to cool.  Transfer to a clean bowl, lay plastic wrap on the surface to prevent a skin forming and refrigerate for up to 2 days.

*A box of puff pastry can be found in the frozen pie shell section at the grocery store – two puff pastries come in a box.  This recipe only uses one.  Store the other one back in the freezer to use for something else.  It comes folded in thirds, and for a minute I figured I’d just cut where the folds were, but that made sort of small puff pastry layers, so I did measure mine and found I had to roll it out a bit to get the proper dimensions.  Work fast, you want to get it back into the fridge to chill, and don't roll too much or it won't get very puffy.

**I put the finished millefeuille  in the refrigerator to firm up for about 20 minutes after I made it, but it really is something you want to eat the same day because it gets a little soft by day 2.  Still good, just slightly mushy.

***Vanilla pods are damn expensive.  Someday I may close my eyes tightly and shell over the cash just to see if using a vanilla pod makes a huge difference in a recipe.  So far, my frugal self just adds about a teaspoon or so of vanilla when it calls for a vanilla pod.  Just make sure you use pure vanilla extract, not that imitation crap.