“Millefeuille”: the famous French cake from Alexander Seleznev - recipe with photo. How to cook mille-feuille - step-by-step recipes with photos Walnut mille-feuille recipe

An airy French cake that will not leave lovers of sweets indifferent. Delicate cream, puff pastry and fruit, mmm! But you will have to tinker with it, mille-feuille does not tolerate haste and requires attention, especially at the stage of creating puff pastry. You didn’t think that we would bake from something ready-made, did you? But first things first. So,
  • Category: Baking / Puff pastry
  • Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients for cream:

  • Milk – 250 ml
  • Eggs – 2 pcs.
  • Vanilla – 1 pod
  • Sugar – 60 grams
  • Flour – 10 grams
  • Corn starch – 10 grams
  • Cream 33% - 250 ml
  • Cognac – 1 tablespoon
  • Fresh raspberries

Method for making puff pastry

Making it: Take the prepared homemade puff pastry out of the refrigerator and roll it out onto a sheet. Make small cuts or pierce the dough with a fork over the entire surface so that there are no bubbles during baking (my cuts were too big and the cream seeped through them).
Bake the dough in an oven preheated to 220°C for 20 minutes. Focus on your oven, the dough should rise and brown.
When ready, remove and cut into 9 equal pieces with a very sharp knife. The edges may not come out very smooth, so we trim the edges to get identical rectangles of dough. The trimmings will be useful to us later. Make crumbs out of them using a blender.
Okay, now let's make the cream. Pour milk into a saucepan, add vanilla seeds and bring to a boil.
At this time, beat the eggs with sugar, then add flour and starch and stir with a whisk or mixer until smooth. You can add a few spoons of hot milk and mix well.
Pour the egg mixture into the boiling milk without ceasing to stir the milk, simmer for a minute or two, as soon as it begins to thicken, remove from heat.
Transfer to a clean bowl, cover, and cool to room temperature.
Beat very cold cream with a mixer until stiff peaks form.
Pour a spoonful of cognac into the cooled custard, mix thoroughly,
and then gently stir in the cream from bottom to top with a spatula. The cream is ready.
Wash fresh berries (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, you can mix as you like) and dry thoroughly on a towel.
Let's start collecting our dessert.
Place the cream in a pastry bag with a nozzle.
Cover the first layer of dough with cream, place fresh berries, another layer of cream on top,
second layer of dough - cream - berries - cream, and cover with a third layer of dough.
Use a wide knife or spatula to trim the sides, since the cream may protrude along the edges and...
and roll with puff pastry crumbs. Garnish with cream and fresh berries and enjoy! Bon appetit!


Are you preparing a tastier French dessert? Let's discuss in the reviews.

Delicious cake recipes

1 hour 15 minutes

435 kcal

5 /5 (5 )

The mille-feuille dessert is a puff pastry with very rich cream, decorated with fresh fruit.

In its essence and preparation technology, it is very similar to our “Napoleon” and, strictly speaking, is not much different from it.

  • Inventory and kitchen appliances: a very sharp knife, a baking tray for baking dough, a container for preparing cream (preferably glass), a culinary syringe (optional for restaurant serving).

The word “millefeuille” is made up of two French words: “mille” (mile) - thousand and “feuille” - layers, sheets. Usually in cookbooks this combination is translated as “yarrow,” but personally I like “a thousand layers” better; in my opinion, this suits the cake better.

Required Products

For the test:

For cream:

Features of product selection

In this recipe we will make the mille-feuille dough ourselves. If you have enough time and inspiration, the dessert will turn out to be truly homemade. But, of course, you don’t have to worry about it. As a rule, chains suggest using ready-made puff pastry, which is quite acceptable (you will need a 450-500 g package).

If you make the dough yourself, do not try to replace the butter with margarine - then it is better to buy ready-made. It is the butter that will make your dough truly homemade!

Mille-feuille cream can be used in a variety of ways. I took not the cheapest, but not the most expensive option.

If you want to surprise your guests with a truly luxurious dessert, use Italian cream cheese instead of cream. mascarpone(in this case you won’t need a thickener), but if, on the contrary, you are going to make a cake for no reason and don’t have expensive cream on hand, you can use full-fat sour cream.

Place the sour cream on cheesecloth and hang it over the sink for several hours (preferably overnight). The serum will drain and the cream will turn out much thicker.

Another option: take 2 parts sour cream and one part full-fat cottage cheese. First, rub the cottage cheese through a sieve or mince it, then beat it with sour cream, powdered sugar and thickener.

In a word, mille-feuille is an unlimited flight of fancy and the absence of clear rules, so don’t hold back in your experiments!

Concerning fruit, then I would not recommend using canned ones from a jar. They are too “wet”; when mixed with cream, they float quickly, and the dessert loses all its attractiveness.

If you really want to make mille-feuille in winter, just garnish it with some shortbread crumbs and a sprig of mint!

History of the French dessert

The first mentions of mille-feuille cake appear in French cookbooks back in the 17th-18th centuries, but the exact origin of the dessert is unknown. The original versions of French mille-feuille had jam instead of cream.

There is a similar dessert in the UK, where it is called vanilla slice (vanilla layers) or cream slice (cream layers), in Hungary and Italy (in Naples, however, this dish was not sweet, but salty, since the southerners made the filling from cream cheese, spinach and pesto sauce).

In Russia, it is believed that the most delicate puff pastry cake with cream, melting in your mouth, was prepared by chefs to celebrate the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, and witty cooks gave it the name of the defeated enemy - “Napoleon”.

The French themselves are convinced that mille-feuille, according to the classic recipe, should be crispy and not soggy, which is the main difference from Napoleon. But here, as they say, it comes down to taste and color - in order for the cake to be crunchy, it just needs to be served immediately, without allowing it to soak.

How to make Millefeuille cake at home: step-by-step recipe

Let's start with preparation test for mille-feuille.

  1. Pour 4 cups of flour into a bowl or onto a clean counter, make a hole in it and crack the eggs into it. Pour in water in which salt and citric acid have been previously dissolved. Start kneading until you get a dough.


    Before preparing the dough, you should always sift the flour! Firstly, it saturates it with oxygen, and secondly, it gets rid of small lumps and foreign objects!

  2. When kneading the dough, be guided by its structure and, if necessary, add flour (the exact amount of flour cannot be calculated in advance, because eggs come in different sizes, and the flour itself has different stickiness). You should have an elastic dough that hardly sticks to your hands.

  3. Mix the soft butter with the remaining glass of flour and put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes so that the butter “sets.”

  4. Roll out the dough on a floured table and spread the butter on top.

  5. Fold the dough into an “envelope” and roll it out again.

  6. Fold the “envelope” again and roll it out.

  7. We repeat the procedure a total of four times. Cover the finished dough with cling film and put it in the refrigerator for several hours.


    According to the technology, the dough does not require freezing. But making puff pastry yourself is a rather tedious procedure, so you can prepare it for future use and then freeze it. The dough can be stored in the freezer for several months!

  8. Roll out the “rested” dough into a thin layer (the thickness should be only a couple of millimeters) and cut into portions.

  9. Place the pieces of dough on a prepared baking sheet (if you have high-quality dishes, you don’t need to grease them with anything - the dough already has enough fat, but if in doubt, put baking paper on the baking sheet and coat it well with butter or vegetable (odorless!) oil.

  10. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about five minutes until golden brown.

Recipe for cream for Millefeuille cake

Let's make the cream. Everything is simple here. Beat the cream well with a mixer, carefully adding powdered sugar and thickener.

How to beautifully decorate and serve Millefeuille cake

Let's collect dessert. Place buttercream thickly on each layer of dough and place fresh fruit on top. You can use strawberries, raspberries, currants - whatever you like.

  1. You only need to work with puff pastry with a very sharp knife, otherwise you will break its structure along the edges and it will not rise. In relation to mille-feuille, this is not fatal (although it is still not good), but if you are preparing croissants, you risk ruining the baked goods, so it is better to make it a rule not to break the technology!
  2. The dough should always be placed in a well-heated oven, otherwise it will not rise!
  3. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5KBqLp-H4IM/sddefault.jpg

    https://youtu.be/5KBqLp-H4IM

    2015-05-08T14:40:02.000Z

    This video gives a complete understanding of how to prepare mille-feuille, so there are no questions left.

    Please note: the presenter uses a culinary syringe to assemble the dessert; this allows you to make the mille-feuille cake very elegant, since the cream is not spread on the cakes, but is laid out on them in “heaps”. It looks incredibly beautiful and expensive, like in a chic restaurant, and, in addition, this presentation makes the dessert completely different from the slightly boring and familiar “Napoleon”.

    But if you don’t have a syringe, no problem! Grease the cakes with a spoon; due to the fresh fruit, the dish will still look very appetizing, and the shape of the cream certainly does not affect the taste.

    Invitation to discuss the dessert and possible improvements

    Mille feuille, like pizza, has a lot of modifications, and each has a right to exist. Once upon a time in the Soviet years, I made salty “Napoleon” with a filling based on canned fish - and believe me, it made an indelible impression on the guests!

    “Millefeuille” can also be not only a dessert, but also a cold appetizer, so for a good housewife this is just a starting point for imagination. What versions of this cake do you make? I would be grateful for original ideas based on mille-feuille - send your recipes with photos, we’ll discuss!

“Millefeuille” is the French analogue of the “Napoleon” dessert beloved by many of our compatriots. The name of the delicacy is translated as “yarrow”, since its basis is made of puff pastry cakes. They are layered with custard or other cream and fresh berries. This is the main difference between “Millefeuille” and “Napoleon”. The result is quite thick layers, so only three or four cakes are enough. The French believe that the most delicious Millefeuille is crispy, so they serve it immediately after cooking, without waiting for the cakes to be soaked in cream and berry juice. All this affects the taste of the finished sweet, making Millefeuille completely different from Napoleon, despite the fact that their recipes have much in common.

Cooking features

Millefeuille is made from yeast-free puff pastry. The cream is used custard, cheese, curd, cream, sour cream or other. If you use ready-made dough and one of the simplest cream options, it will take very little time to prepare the dessert. But still, pastries and cakes, prepared from start to finish at home from the highest quality ingredients, turn out much tastier than those made from store-bought semi-finished products. If you really want to create a French dessert with your own hands, you will need to know a few things, since the task before you is not entirely simple.

  • Puff pastry can be made from margarine or butter. The most delicious food comes from natural high-fat oil.
  • There is no rush to prepare puff pastry. Having rolled out the first layer, folded the product into an envelope and put it in the refrigerator. After a while, it is rolled out again, folded into an envelope, and cooled. Do this 2–4 times. As a result, it can take almost half a day to prepare the dough for Millefeuille alone. If you have planned to prepare Millefeuille, do not plan other important things for that day. Prepare a large amount of dough at once so that part of it can be frozen: this will significantly reduce the preparation time for the dessert next time.
  • You only need to cut the puff pastry with a sharp knife, otherwise it sticks together at the cuts and does not rise during baking.
  • Puff pastry contains a lot of oil, so before baking the cakes, just lay baking paper on the baking sheet. If you are not sure of its quality, you can grease it with butter or vegetable oil, but only with a very thin layer.
  • Some of the baked dough can be crumbled and used to sprinkle the finished cake (or pastries) following the example of Napoleon.
  • Berries and fruits for Millefeuille are usually taken fresh. If you use frozen ones, let them thaw and drain off any juices. Canned fruits are not suitable for making Yarrow, as they quickly soak the dough.
  • If you use butter to make the cream, remove it from the refrigerator in advance to soften it. Cream, on the contrary, must be used cold, otherwise it will be difficult to whip. The custard is cooked in a water bath or very low heat so that the yolks do not curdle.
  • In order for Mille-feuille to have a classic look, the cream is not spread on the cakes, but spread out using a cooking bag or syringe. This can only be done after the cakes have cooled completely. The cream also needs to be cooled.

The dessert should be served freshly prepared, otherwise it will cease to be crispy and lose some of its charm.

Classic Millefeuille recipe

  • wheat flour - 120 g for dough, 20 g for cream;
  • chicken eggs - 1 pc. for dough, 2 pcs. for cream;
  • powdered sugar - 40 g for dough, 20 g for custard, 20 g for buttercream;
  • lemon juice - 20 ml;
  • butter - 60 g;
  • salt - a pinch;
  • vanillin - a pinch;
  • milk - 0.2 l;
  • heavy cream - 100 ml;
  • fresh berries (strawberries or others) - 0.25–0.3 kg.

Cooking method:

  • Wrap a piece of butter of the desired size in foil and put it in the freezer for half an hour.
  • Sift the flour, mix with salt and a tablespoon of powdered sugar.
  • Grind the frozen butter, holding the piece by the foil. It will be easier to do this if you first dip the butter into the flour.
  • Sprinkle the butter with flour, sprinkle with lemon juice, and knead the dough.
  • Wrap the dough in cling film and place it in the main compartment of the refrigerator for half an hour.
  • Roll out the dough, roll it into an envelope, and put it in the refrigerator for another half hour.
  • Roll out the dough again and fold it into an envelope. Put it in the refrigerator.
  • After half an hour, roll out the dough again into a rectangle of 36 cm by 24 cm or a square of 30 cm by 30 cm.
  • Place parchment paper on a baking sheet. Wrap the dough around the rolling pin, transfer it to a baking sheet, and spread it out.
  • Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
  • Pierce the dough in several places with a fork, brush with beaten egg, and place in the oven.
  • After 10 minutes, sprinkle the dough with powdered sugar and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven, cut into three pieces measuring 12 cm by 24 cm if you plan to make a small cake, or into 18 pieces measuring 5 cm by 10 cm if you prefer mille-feuille in the form of cakes. Leave the cakes to cool.
  • Divide the remaining eggs into whites and yolks; only the latter will be needed to prepare the cream.
  • Place the yolks in a bowl, add powdered sugar, vanillin, 50 ml of milk, and beat with a whisk. Add flour and stir until smooth.
  • Heat the remaining milk without bringing it to a boil. Pour into the yolks in a thin stream, whisking them at the same time.
  • Place the cream in a water bath or low heat. Cook, stirring, until it thickens. Remove the cream from the heat and let it cool. To speed up the process, the bowl of cream can be placed in a container filled with cold water.
  • When the cream has cooled, whip the cream and add the remaining powdered sugar.
  • Combine cream with custard.
  • Wash the berries and let them dry. Cut large strawberries in half.
  • Place the cream in a pastry bag. Squeeze it onto the cakes precisely. You need to cover 2/3 of the cakes, leaving the third part for the final layer.
  • Place the berries on the cream, drowning them slightly in it.
  • Place the other half of the cream-covered cakes on half of the cakes decorated with cream and berries. Place clean cakes on top.

Before serving, the cake can be sprinkled with powdered sugar and decorated with berries.

Millefeuille with cheese cream and raspberries

  • puff pastry - 0.5 kg;
  • mascarpone - 0.2 kg;
  • heavy cream - 0.2 l;
  • dessert wine - 40 ml;
  • powdered sugar - 40 g;
  • raspberry confiture - 40 ml;
  • fresh raspberries - 0.25 kg.

Cooking method:

  • Mix mascarpone with alcohol and whisk.
  • Whip the cream separately, then combine it with the cheese mixture and beat again.
  • Thaw the finished puff pastry, divide into 2 parts (it is often sold in packages of 2 layers).
  • Roll out the first layer, place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment, pierce it in several places with a fork and place in an oven preheated to 220 degrees for 15 minutes.
  • Cool the baked layer slightly, cut into 4-8 pieces of equal size, and leave to cool.
  • Bake and cut the second layer of dough in the same way.
  • Divide the cakes into groups of 4 cakes. As a result, you will get either 2 large cakes or 4 medium-sized cakes.
  • Divide the confiture by the number of cakes and spread the corresponding number of cake layers (if you are making 2 large cakes, cover 2 cake layers with confiture).
  • Cover the confiture-coated cakes with clean ones and press down. The resulting pairs of cakes, sealed with confiture, will become the center of future cakes.
  • Cover the jam-glued cakes with cream and berries, using half of these products.
  • Apply the remaining cream and berries onto 2–4 cake layers (according to the number of cakes). Leave a few berries (6–12 pcs.) for decoration.
  • Assemble the cakes by placing the first layer of a single-layer cake with cream and raspberries, and the second layer - a pyramid of cakes glued together with jam, covered with cream and berries. Place the final layer of clean cakes.
  • Dust the brownies with powdered sugar.
  • Arrange the berries.

The dessert according to this recipe is not too sweet, but very tasty. Cream cheese and tart raspberries create a harmonious pairing. A dusting of powdered sugar softens the inherent sourness of the raspberries.

Simple Millefeuille recipe

  • puff pastry - 0.4 kg;
  • fresh or frozen cranberries - 0.2 kg;
  • sugar or powdered sugar - 100 g;
  • sour cream 25% fat - 0.25 l.

Cooking method:

  • Roll out the puff pastry, dividing it into 2 parts, bake in an oven preheated to 220 degrees (15 minutes each). Cut each cake into 6 pieces.
  • Beat the sour cream with powdered sugar, leaving 20–40 g of the sweet product for decorating the cakes.
  • Thaw the cranberries, drain the liquid. If you have the opportunity to use fresh berries, opt for them. Cranberries can be replaced with black currants or other sour berries.
  • Cover 8 cake layers with sour cream, arrange the berries on them. Fold the cakes in pairs (placing them on top of each other). Cover with remaining cake layers.
  • Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
  • Heat the knife, touch the surface of each cake 2-3 times with the blade - brown stripes will appear on them as the powdered sugar caramelizes.

It will take no more than an hour to prepare the French dessert according to the given recipe, but its taste will not disappoint you.

Millefeuille is a popular French dessert made from puff pastry with custard or other cream and fresh berries. In composition, it resembles the famous “Napoleon” in our country, but the taste is completely different.

Remove the dough from the freezer to defrost.

In the meantime, prepare the cream: pour 1 glass of milk (or cream) into a ladle or saucepan, put on fire and bring to a boil, add sugar and vanilla sugar, reduce heat and, stirring thoroughly, bring until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Combine the 2nd glass of milk with eggs and flour, mix until smooth.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees. Cut the defrosted dough into equal parts - squares or rectangles, place them on a baking sheet covered with parchment, grease with yolk.

Wash the strawberries, dry them and cut them into slices.

Assembling Millefeuille cakes.

Cut all puff pastries and disassemble them into two parts (2 layers). For 1 Mille-feuille cake you will need 1.5 baked puff pastries or 3 cake layers (obtained after cutting each baked puff pastry into 2 parts).

Place the lower parts on a cutting board or large dish, using a pastry bag or plastic bag to place small balls of cream over the entire surface of the cake.

Place strawberries on top in one layer, and also apply a few drops of cream on it (so that the top cake sticks).

Cover with the second cake layer.

Repeat the procedure - cream, strawberries, a little cream,

cover with the third cake layer.

That's it, the delicious Mille-feuille cakes are ready - you can serve them right away!

Enjoy your tea!

“Millefeuille was invented by the French chef Francois Pierre de La Varenne at the end of the 17th century. Since then, the dessert has undergone many changes until it finally came to what it is now: three layers of puff pastry (each with 256 layers), topped with whipped cream, berries and berry sauce or jelly. Translated from French, the word millefeuille means “a thousand petals.” Of course, this is an exaggeration; it is not difficult to calculate that 256 x 3 is less than a thousand.

1.

The dough for mille-feuille is the same as for croissants. You can buy ready-made puff pastry, but it is better, of course, to make it yourself to be sure of the ingredients, taste and quality. Industrial manufacturers often use margarine and palm oil instead of butter.

Pour 375 g of flour into the bowl. Then take 165 ml of water, dissolve 2 g of salt and 2 g of citric acid in it. Citric acid makes the dough soft and elastic. We dissolve the salt and acid in water to be sure that they will fully interact with the dough and will not remain lumps somewhere.

Add water to flour. Break one egg into the dough.

2.

Put the dough to knead in a mixer with a hook attachment for 10 minutes. First, at low speed, until all the ingredients stick together, and then the speed can be increased. Knead the finished dough with your hands, wrap in film and place in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

3.

At this time, prepare the butter that will be used to layer the dough. Take 250 g of softened butter of 82.5% fat content, chopped as desired, add 25 g of flour, grind everything until smooth. Flour is needed to bond the butter with the dough so that it clings to it.

4.

Place the butter mass on the parchment, spread it in a thin layer so that it forms a square, and wrap it completely in paper.

You can wrap the butter in plastic, but parchment is easier to form into a square and even easier to remove. Paper is denser, so the oil will take the desired shape more quickly.

5.

Roll over the parchment with a rolling pin several times until the mixture becomes flat and thin, no more than 5–7 mm thick. Place the butter in the refrigerator and keep it there until it hardens. This will take about an hour.

6.

While the dough is resting in the refrigerator, prepare the caramel. Pour 250 g of sugar into a saucepan and place on heat slightly higher than medium. Pay close attention to what happens at the bottom, this is where the sugar will begin to melt.

There is no need to stir the mass with anything: if you interfere with the process with a whisk or spatula, the sugar may subsequently crystallize, it is so unpredictable. But since you still need to stir the caramel, do it this way: just shake the saucepan itself a little.

7.

In ten to fifteen minutes the sugar will turn into caramel. Make sure that the sugar does not burn; if this happens, reduce the temperature.

If the temperature is very low, the caramel will take longer to cook and will turn out light. But we need the dark one, it is cooked over higher heat.

8.

Pour the finished caramel in a thin layer onto a silicone mat and leave to cool.

The French love caramel very much, they use it widely, for example, they even make sauces from it.

9.

Take out the dough, roll it out lightly, and then continue to roll it out so that the middle is thicker and the edges are thinner, like petals. Stretch the corners of the dough so that they can then cover the butter.

The surface on which you are rolling out the dough and the rolling pin should be cold. By the way, you can put a rolling pin in the refrigerator for this. The optimal room temperature is 15–17 degrees, which is quite cold. In winter you can open the window, in summer you can turn on the air conditioning. This is necessary so that the butter that we will put on the dough does not begin to melt. Melted butter will cause the dough to tear and stick to the countertop.

10.

Remove the cooled butter. Try to see if it fits in the center of the dough and if it covers the entire edges. If not, set aside the butter and roll out the dough further or stretch it with your hands.

11.

Wrap the butter in the dough as if in an envelope. Make sure that the flour you sprinkle on the dough for rolling does not get between the layers.

12.

The edges of the dough will overlap the butter; press them tightly.

13.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle in two directions - away from you and towards you, but not across. The final thickness should be approximately 1 cm. The length of the piece of dough should be approximately four times the width. Everything must be done very quickly, because the butter melts. Remove excess flour from surface.

14.

Fold the dough. To do this, mentally divide it into three parts. Fold the first two together, one third of the dough will remain, fold it in half. The result is a book where one part is larger, the second is smaller.

If we folded the dough symmetrically, then during subsequent folding the middle would be wrinkled.

15.

Fold the resulting sheet of dough in half. From the side it will look like in the picture. These are our first four layers.

Place the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Then take it out, roll it out to a thickness of 1 cm, fold it in the same way, and put it back in the refrigerator. Repeat the procedure two more times.

16.

As a result, you will get a dough with 256 layers.

This dough can last a week in the refrigerator, and three months in the freezer. In addition to millefeuille, you can use it to make crumpets, pies, and cakes.

You need to cut it with a very sharp (but not hot) knife or a pizza roller so as not to seal the layers.

17.

Roll out the dough according to the shape of the baking tray so that it is no higher than 5 mm in height. Prick the dough: this is necessary so that the dough does not swell with a pillow during baking and so that the layers catch on each other in places.

Send the dough to bake in the oven preheated to 200 degrees for about 20 minutes. Look at the condition, the dough should be browned on both sides. To prevent it from turning into a pillow, it must be turned over. This is not difficult: at the moment when the surface is already golden brown, open the oven, quickly turn the dough over with the golden brown side down and leave to finish baking. I turn it over with my bare hands; the dough is hard to feel through the gloves and can be broken.

It will take about 10 minutes in the oven on each side. Cool the finished cake.

18.

While the dough is baking, prepare the cream. Beat 200g of cold 33% cream at maximum speed in a blender until soft peaks form, this will take 5-7 minutes. Vegetable cream whips faster and holds its shape longer, but I prefer animal cream, it tastes better.

Check the required texture using the whisk - the cream should hold tightly and not drip. Place the cream in the refrigerator to prevent it from collapsing.

19.

Put 90 g of yolks to beat (this is about 5 pieces). Add the seeds from one vanilla pod to the yolks. I cut the pods in half and lengthwise with scissors, then use a knife to scrape the seeds out onto my finger. This is the most economical option, not a grain will be wasted. Vanilla sugar will not give the desired aroma. The grains in the cream also crunch, which is pleasant both visually and to the taste. There is no need to throw away the pods; they can be added to the sugar syrup during cooking, and it will turn vanilla and take on a pleasant caramel shade.

20.

While the yolks and vanilla are whipping, cook the sugar syrup. Stir 100 g of sugar in 80 ml of water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the syrup temperature reaches 116 degrees. If you don't have a candy thermometer, try eyeballing the doneness. After about 10 minutes, the bubbles in the syrup will become lazy, small, multi-layered - that means it’s ready. By the way, the syrup should be stirred in the same way as caramel - by moving the saucepan itself.

While you cook the syrup, let the yolks continue to beat, they will not get any worse.

21.

Add hot syrup to the yolks (they should continue to beat), followed by 10 g of gelatin (pre-soaked in cold water and squeezed out). The whole mass will turn out hot, so it makes no sense to melt the gelatin separately. Then add 200 g of mascarpone to the bowl, whisk until everything is smooth. Of course, mascarpone cream is a non-traditional version of cream; usually only whipped cream is used. But it tastes better, although it’s heavier.

Make sure that the mascarpone does not remain on the sides of the bowl. If necessary, stop the mixer, stir the cream with a spatula, and then continue beating.

22.

Add whipped cream to the cream, mix everything with a spatula or whisk. Stir gently from bottom to top so that the cream does not settle. Place the cream in the refrigerator for an hour.

23.

Slice the cold crust. First, cut off the edges, they are uneven. They can be crushed and used for sprinkling, or you can simply eat them.

The shape depends on what size mille-feuille you want to make. Mille feuille can be a portioned dessert, or it can be a cake. For a large cake, cut the large cake into three small squares, for portioned desserts - into small rectangles.

24.

Grind the caramel - break it into medium pieces with your hands and put it in a blender.

25.

The end result should be caramel dust.