Lemon Mille Feuille

Lemons are immensely versatile. They smell divine, refreshing and lovely, and they taste just as good, tartness included. You can make invisible ink out of lemon juice. You can grate the zest and use it to accent various foods. You can give a lemony, fresh kick to a myriad of dishes. You can find your cuts with it. It is a flavour most people can accept, if not love. It isn’t hard to see why. What makes it even better is its pairing ability. The ability to blend in yet stand out at the same time. The ability to accentuate, yet not overpower. A perfect choice if you’re looking for something that’s bold, but not overly so.

I decided to try something different. Something sweet. A dessert. Simple enough, but still impressive. One that uses puff pastry, because I’d made a fresh batch then. Mille Feuille fits the bill. Delicate with the layers of temperamental pastry, and the gentle, creamy flavours, stacked to fancy perfection. A sturdy dessert in its own right. This pastry consists of thin puff pastry layers alternating with cream- the topping can vary with the recipe. Here I’ve decided to make a lemon flavoured one, with pastry cream and lemon curd.

You’ll need to make three separate things for this: puff pastry, lemon curd, and pastry cream. Here’s my puff pastry recipe. This is the lemon curd recipe I used. And here is the recipe for the pastry cream. Make the fillings beforehand, so you can leave them to chill and set in the fridge.

It’s time to assemble.

Start by baking a sheet of puff pastry. Roll out a block as thin as you can, into a shape that fits your baking sheet. It should be rectangular rather than square. Here is where I made a mistake. I forgot to prick holes all over the dough, so mine expanded like crazy in the oven, pushing off the baking pan I placed on top to weigh it down. The dough didn’t know its inner strength. Like so:

Just don’t be like me. After poking the holes, cover the dough with parchment paper, then place a pan or sheet on top. Bake in a preheated oven at 200˚C for 20 minutes, give or take five minutes. It should be crisp and golden brown.

Note: that was slightly underbaked. It was too pale and almost doughy in the centre. But notice how puffed up it is?

Cut out equally sized rectangles. It’s okay if you don’t get them exact, you’ll have a chance to even it out later. But this will make it easier. Once again, the pastry here is still underbaked. I later placed it in the oven for a few more minutes. Note that this is the way I did it, baking it whole, then cutting after it’s baked. You don’t have to do it like this. You can cut the dough beforehand.

The layering can begin.

Since the pastry cream was thicker than the lemon curd, I began with that.

Take some of the cream…

And slather it on! There’s no need to skimp here.

I may or may not have licked some excess cream. Don’t worry, I wash my hands. Those little vanilla bean specks are so enticing.

Spoon the lemon curd over. Another note: my lemon curd was runnier that it should’ve been. Once again, don’t be like me and save yourself. Or soon your fillings will be weeping and so will you. I speak from experience. Also, a little word of warning, sometimes metallic utensils will give your curd a metallic tinge. Try to avoid that.

You might be wondering why I’m writing a tutorial if I keep making mistakes. It’s so that 1) you can learn from my mistakes, 2) I need to post these pictures, 3) you can follow in my footsteps of despair. That’s entirely optional, however.

Once you’ve put a sufficient amount of lemon curd, cover the fillings with another piece of pastry.

Why do you weep, child?

Luckily it doesn’t have sleeves to wipe its snot off on.

Begin the layering again. A layer of cream, then curd. Same as before.

Like so. Try to ignore the ooze.

Then place another piece of pastry on top, once you’re done with that.

Here is where it gets messy. And brutal. Let me offer some stark and honest kitchen insight here. This is where you trim the edges off the pastry, so that it’s all level and even and pretty. Not that it isn’t pretty now. But, you know, it could be a teeny bit more refined… without the, uh, slimon curd. I tried to thwart its efforts of escape. It was a bit like trying to staple water to a wall. So the pastry cried and leaked pus-like rivulets, and I’m sorry, that has to be one of the most unappetizing sentences ever. Despite its Houdini-esque skills, I still managed to cut around the edges. Fingers plunging into the cream. With my hand half coated in the sticky fillings, with flakes of shattered pastry tethered to the goop, like the glued on macaroni on a kindergartener’s art project. And oh, the debris surrounding it all. What a nightmare. That’s all that needs to be said. But despite the odds against me, I survived.

That was not without fits of frustration. I’m glad I persevered, though. Yet it needed a finishing touch. Something simple, but beautiful enough. One sheet of kitchen towel paper. Cut into strips. Arranged diagonally across the top, lined up as best as my mediocre skills would allow. A little icing sugar, a little determination, and a few shakes later, I had my final design. Whew. I have to say the end result wasn’t bad.

Okay, I admit, it turned out better than I anticipated.

Can you see the layers?

Flaky, distinct layers. Mmm.

The verdict? Success. My family enjoyed it. So did my teacher. Where to begin with the taste… The sweetness was perfectly balanced, with the richness of the cream, and the slight tartness of the lemon curd. Not majorly sweet, but sweet enough. Combine the smoothness of the cream and curd with the crisp, buttery pastry layers, and you’ve got something luscious. This isn’t the kind of recipe you’d gorge on or indulge heartily in. This is the kind of elegant, delicate treat that you’d have with a cup of tea, or as the sweet ending to a special lunch. It is rather time-consuming. And maybe a hassle to make. Is it worth it? That’s up to you to decide.

Personally, I’d save this for special occasions.

I’ll never forget that mess.