Whenever I went to my gran’s house you could bet your bottom dollar that there was a cream and jam slice waiting for you. With sweet jam, crispy puff pastry, and light whipped cream they were a classic dessert that everyone enjoyed. In this post, I am combining this memory with fresh ingredients from my parents produce-heavy garden as there is fresh fruit coming at us from all directions! Obviously, if you don’t have a garden with raspberries and mint then a trip to the local supermarket will do just fine!
This recipe is a little lengthier than my previous posts but don’t let that put you off! All of the components can be made in advance if you don’t want to spend the whole day baking. The pastry cream and raspberry gel can be made and stored in an airtight container for a week and the pastry will last 2-3 days once baked in an airtight tin. Alternatively the pastry can be frozen and taken out the day before, or kept up to a week in the fridge before baking, providing it is wrapped up well in cling film. To break down the timings for those who don’t want to make it all at once, I have put individual times next to the ingredients for each part and split the recipe up into the respective sections.
This recipe produces wonderful combination of tart raspberry flavours with a sweet and smooth crème patissiere, sandwiched between light and buttery pastry, making it a delicious and decadent treat for an afternoon tea or coffee and cake meeting. Your guests will be astounded at the finished product, which looks like it was taken straight from a French patisserie.
Whether you decide to go the whole hog, and do it all at once, or whether you take your time, I hope you have as much fun making (and eating) this as I did.
Happy baking. X
Time: 5 hours (or 2 ½ if you buy the puff pastry)
Serves: Makes 10 slices
Ingredients
For the raspberry gel (40 mins + ~1hr setting time)
200g raspberries
10 sprigs of mint
1 tbsp icing sugar
5 tbsp water
3 g agar agar flakes bloomed in 1 tbsp water
For the puff pastry (1 ¼ hour including chilling time)
260 g plain flour plus a little extra for dusting
150 g salted butter
150 ml cold water
For the crème patissiere (20 mins)
3 egg yolks plus 1 whole egg
450 ml whole milk
90 g granulated sugar
20 g cornflour
2 ½ tsp vanilla essence or 1 vanilla pod with beans scraped into the milk
Pinch salt
40 g butter
Extra
Icing sugar for dusting
Fresh mint leaves
Fresh raspberries
Edible gold powder (optional)
Method:
For the gel
1. Put your Agar Agar into the one tablespoon of water , stir, and set aside while you do the rest of the gel.
2. Add your raspberries, 5 tablespoonfuls of water , and mint into a container and blend into a paste using an electric hand blender.
3. Sieve the resulting mixture into a bowl so you have a smooth Raspberry coulis.
4. Add your Raspberry coulis, icing sugar, and Agar Agar into a pan and heat gently until boiling.
5. Boil the mixture for five minutes in order to activate the Agar Agar. Once this is done set aside to cool, then place in the fridge while you make the pastry and custard.
6. Once it has cooled use a hand blender to blend into a smooth gel and put back into the fridge.
For the pastry
7. To make the pastry add your plain flour into a bowl and slowly pour in the water whilst stirring.
8. Dust your work surface with a little bit of flour and need the mixture until you have a workable dough.
9. Roll your pastry dough into a rectangle about quarter of an inch thick. Put the block of butter in between 2 bits of baking paper and use a rolling pin to hit it into a square. Use fold the butter back on itself and repeat the process until the butter can be folded without breaking.
10. Put your butter into the centre of your pastry dough so that the corners are at 45 degree angles to the pastry (this will look like a diamond inside of the square).
11. Fold the corners of the pastry around the butter taking care to avoid too much air to be trapped in between the butter and the pastry, as this may burst your pastry causing the butter to leak out. Roll out the pastry into a rectangle and fold the top third down and the bottom third up.
12. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes to half an hour.
13. Repeat the folding process. This time, once you have folded the top third down and the bottom third up, rotate your pastry 90 degrees before rolling, then repeat again before putting back in the fridge for a further 20 minutes.
14. Repeat the folding process for the final time and leave in the fridge until needed.
For the crème patissiere
15. To make the pastry cream, put the milk and vanilla into a pan and bring to boiling point gently.
16. While the milk is heating, add your eggs, sugar, corn flour and pinch of salt into a bowl and mix into a paste.
17. Once the milk has just boiled, take it off the heat immediately. With a whisk start to stir your egg and sugar mixture and slowly pour a third of the hot milk in a steady stream. Be sure to whisk vigorously at this point to prevent the eggs from curdling.
18. Once you have added about 1/3 of the milk put the pan back down and continue to stir the egg and sugar mixture.
19. Add your egg, sugar and flour mixture back into the remaining milk and whisk over a low heat until thickened. This may take a few minutes but ensure that you whisk continuously.
20. Once you see bubbles start to break the surface of your custard pour into a bowl and immediately place cling film over the top to stop it forming a skin.
21. Set aside to cool until needed.
Baking and assembly
22. While your custard is cooling bake your pastry sheets. To do this, first third your pastry.
23. Using your first block of pastry, roll out a rectangle about 19 cm x25 cm.
24. Measure out even rectangles from the sheet of pastry, these should be 5 cmx 9.5 cm . You should get 10 pastry pieces out of each sheet.
25. Repeat this with the other two blocks of pastry, so you end up with 30 slices of pastry of the same size.
26. Put your pastry on a lined baking tray. Cover with another piece of greaseproof paper and place another baking try on top. This helps to stop the pastry puffing up, so you end up with a nice, crisp, layered pastry.
27. Bake these in the oven at 220°C, for 20 minutes or until golden brown. You may need to bake in several batches if you don't have big enough trays.
28. Leave to cool on a wire rack until assembly.
29. To assemble, put a large star nozzle in one piping bag and fill with creme patissiere and a small star nozzle in another piping bag and fill with your raspberry gel.
30. Pipe stars onto your pastry so you end up with a checkerboard pattern with alternate custard and raspberry stars (see image).
31. Repeat on another layer of pastry and put on top of the first.
32. For the top piece of pastry put a piece of kitchen paper diagonally across the pastry and sprinkle over icing sugar.
33. Pipe a large custard star at the top of the pastry and 3 small raspberry ones along the line where the icing sugar meets the plain pastry.
34. Dip a fresh mint leaf into the gold dust (or just leave it green, it will look just as good), and stick into the custard star.
35. Add a fresh raspberry as a final garnish and repeat with the remaining slices.
Step 5. Once you have boiled your agar agar, raspberry coulis and icing sugar together, leave it to set.
Step 6. Once solid, blend into a smooth paste using an electric hand whisk.
Step 10. Place your butter inside the pastry
Step 11. Fold the pastry around the butter like an envelope
Step 11-13. Fold the pastry like a letter until you have many layers
Step 24. Roll out a third of your pastry into a rectangle and measure out 10 pieces as evenly as possible
Step 26. Bake between two baking trays for 20 mins
Step 27. Leave to cool on a wire rack. You can also trim any uneven pieces while the pastry is warm if you want to be precise!
Step 29. Use large and small star nozzles to pipe your custard and raspberry gel
Step 30. Pipe alternate stars of custard and gel onto two of the 3 pastry layers of each mille-feuille
Step 32. Dust the top piece of pastry with icing sugar, using a bit of kitchen paper to create a diagonal line across the top
Step 33. Pipe a large custard star and 3 small raspberry stars on the top piece of pastry
Step 34-35. Dip a mint leaf in edible gold dust (or leave green if you prefer) and place in the custard star. Add a fresh raspberry as a final garnish and serve!
Comments