Recipe: Strawberry Millefeuille

This traditional French pastry literally translates to 'a million layers'. We're not going to say that ours has quite that many but the tower of light crisp puff pastry, homemade vanilla creme patisserie, fresh strawberries and a chocolate icing turns this into a real treat... albeit a little messy to eat!
Ingredients
- 1 sheet puff pastry
- 1 scoop icing sugar
- 1 handful fresh raspberries
- 1 handful fresh strawberries
- 4 egg yolks
- 4 tsp caster sugar
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- 1 drops vanilla extract
- 300 ml milk
- 200 g icing sugar
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder

Step 1
Make The Custard
Warm the milk up in a pan until it’s just about to boil. Beat together the egg yolks, castor sugar, vanilla and plain flour in a clean bowl. Pour the boiling milk over the egg mix then return it all to the pan and heat it until it bubbles and thickens.

Step 2
Cool The Custard
Allow the mixture to bubble for a minute then remove, pour it through a sieve, cover with clingfilm and leave to cool.

Step 3
Preheat The Oven
Preheat to oven to 200°C.

Step 4
Cut Out The Pastry
Unroll out the pastry on a slightly sugared table and cut out 12 rectangles of equal size, approximately 10cm long and 5cm wide. Lay the pastry onto a baking paper lined tray and dust with icing sugar.

Step 5
Bake The Pastry
Chill the pastry in the fridge for at least half an hour before baking for 10 minutes or until golden and crispy. Leave the pastry to one side to cool.

Step 6
Make The Icing
Beat the icing sugar and cocoa powder with a few dashes of water until you have a thick and gloopy icing.

Step 7
Spread The Icing
Dip one third of the cooled pastry rectangles into the icing to gain an even covering… or spread it over them using a palette knife.

Step 8
Layer And Serve It!
Layer up one plain pastry slice, then some crème patisserie, a neat arrangement of fresh berries, then repeat again, finally finishing with the chocolate dipped pastry top to create a mille feuille slice. Makes 4