Mille feuille - got a serving question

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yduj, Apr 30, 4:40am
Last night I got to enjoy this dessert (the one on Masterchef) but really we had a problem with the cutting and serving it.As it is layers they seemed to slide and make cutting difficult.Any suggestions anyone.

rainrain1, Apr 30, 5:17am
maybe if you sawed it carefully with a serrated knife

buzzy110, Apr 30, 5:25am
No ideas. Unfortunately the way it is made in NZ makes this a dessert that is actually impossible to eat without a really sharp knife handy. For some unfathomable reason it is made with flaky pastry instead of Pate Feuilletee pastry, whipped cream instead of creme patissiere and probably not iced with glace royal at all. The French version is only slightly tricky to eat, the NZ version, with sliced up fruit (not in the French version), is not. Cold flaky pastry is not easy to cut with a spoon and fork.

rosathemad, Apr 30, 6:12am
Buzzy, it is very difficult to eat - and I despise whipped cream in that context! - but I have never seen it with sliced fruit. Clearly I need to get myself back to France with a focus on eating, though. ;-) What is Pate Feuilletee pastry like?

yduj, from my experience with the crude Kiwi adaptation, custard squares (which I love) a serrated knife, and if possible, cutting the pastry on an angle (i.e. start from the end, don't apply downward pressure if you can help it).

buzzy110, Apr 30, 6:31am
I've encountered a purchased flaky pastry creation stuffed with strawberries and whipped cream and called Mille Feuille. And this was at a cooking demonstration. I tried not to snigger but it was very difficult. I would haveleft out the whipped cream and pastry and just eaten the pure, unadulterated strawberries, maybe with a glass of cold sparkling wine, but that is just me - no class apparently.

rosathemad, Apr 30, 6:59am
Interesting - yes, I think I'd just go with the strawberries too. :-) I am really not a fan of whipped cream most of the time (though I confess I love cream-filled brandy snaps). Last year our family ran some high teas as a fundraiser and my mum was shocked when I suggested using creme patissiere in the chocolate eclairs - she thought whipped cream would have been better. I think once she tried them she accepted my method but thought the effort was strange. Different strokes for different folks, I guess...

kiwiscrapper1, Apr 30, 9:11am
oh good you seem to know about french baking... do you know what the biscuit is called that is like a shortbread and is put together with jam and has 3 holes in the top biscuit so you can see the jam inbetween? I know the translation is 3 eyes! I had one nearly every morning for 'brunch' whilst in France and they were very yummy but cant remember the name of them.

kuaka, Apr 30, 9:19am
I thought the masterchef version looked as though it would be a bit tricky to eat, but it did look yummy.

When I lived in Hamilton, there was a little pizza place run by an Italian in Garden Place and he used to serve gorgeous mille feuille, but they were serving size, and from memory filled with yummy creamy custardy stuff.Don't know whether he made them himself or bought them in but they were divine.

ribzuba, Apr 30, 11:23am
when i make millefuille i tend to make small individual ones and then everyone can make a mess on their plates! (sorry i dont watch MC so i dont know what theirs looked like)

winnie231, Apr 30, 7:33pm
The masterchef version was made using pate feuilletee or puff pastry.

miss-skyline, Apr 30, 8:10pm
you can also make it with filo pastry,and alot easier to cut..

pam.delilah, Apr 30, 8:11pm
one way to get around the cutting of the pastry is ti pre cut the bottom layers, leaving the top whole and fill as required, with piecestogether, and you just need to cut through the top layer to match the cut bottom layers

uli, Apr 30, 9:44pm
I will never understand the use of baking terms here - puff pastry and flakey pastry are used interchangeably here. Are they also made in the same way?

juggler96, May 1, 3:46am
I use an electric knife and find it easier to cut through the layers without it disintegrating.

rosathemad, May 1, 6:12am
Buzzy, it is very difficult to eat - and I despise whipped cream in that context! - but I have never seen it with sliced fruit. Clearly I need to get myself back to France with a focus on eating, though. ;-) What is Pate Feuilletee pastry like!

yduj, from my experience with the crude Kiwi adaptation (custard squares, which I love) a serrated knife, and if possible, cutting the pastry on an angle (i.e. start from the end, don't apply downward pressure if you can help it) is the way to go.

buzzy110, May 1, 6:31am
I've encountered a purchased flaky pastry creation stuffed with strawberries and whipped cream and called Mille Feuille. And this was at a cooking demonstration. I tried not to snigger but it was very difficult. I would haveleft out the whipped cream and pastry and just eaten the pure, unadulterated strawberries, maybe with a glass of cold sparkling wine, but that is just me - no class apparently.

rosathemad, May 1, 6:59am
Interesting - yes, I think I'd just go with the strawberries too. :-) I am really not a fan of whipped cream most of the time (though I confess I love cream-filled brandy snaps). Last year our family ran some high teas as a fundraiser and my mum was shocked when I suggested using creme patissiere in the chocolate eclairs - she thought whipped cream would have been better. I think once she tried them she accepted my method but thought the effort was strange. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

kiwiscrapper1, May 1, 9:11am
oh good you seem to know about french baking. do you know what the biscuit is called that is like a shortbread and is put together with jam and has 3 holes in the top biscuit so you can see the jam inbetween! I know the translation is 3 eyes! I had one nearly every morning for 'brunch' whilst in France and they were very yummy but cant remember the name of them.

kuaka, May 1, 9:19am
I thought the masterchef version looked as though it would be a bit tricky to eat, but it did look yummy.

When I lived in Hamilton, there was a little pizza place run by an Italian in Garden Place and he used to serve gorgeous mille feuille, but they were serving size, and from memory filled with yummy creamy custardy stuff.Don't know whether he made them himself or bought them in but they were divine.

kuaka, May 1, 11:05am
uli - I could be wrong, but we learned how to make both puff and flaky pastry at school (yes, it was some 50 years ago now), and I seem to recall they were both made basically the same way, by rubbing a quarter of the butter into the flour to make the pastry, then the pastry is rolled into a rectangle, and another quarter of the butter is dabbed on the top 2/3 of the rectangle which is then folded, unbuttered piece folds up, the the top of the buttered piece is folded down on top, and it's pressed together with the flat edge of your hand.This is repeated twice more.The only difference is that for flaky pastry it is rolled out in the same direction, for puff pastry the rectangle of pastry is turned through 90 degrees, before being rolled again.

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that's how we did it.

The result is that they are both very buttery, but the puff one is puffier.

miss-skyline, May 1, 8:10pm
you can also make it with filo pastry,and alot easier to cut.

uli, May 1, 9:44pm
I will never understand the use of baking terms here - puff pastry and flakey pastry are used interchangeably here. Are they also made in the same way!

buzzy110, May 2, 12:14am
Join the club. the result seems to be the same but different manufacturers use different terms for the same product. My cookery books all refer to it as flaky/flakey pastry and I never encountered puff till I started looking in supermarket deep freezers. kuaka could be correct but the difference is negligible imo especially when you factor in the fact that purchased pastry uses stabiliser, preservative, hydrogenated palm oil and other additives in both puff and flaky/flakey and therefore really does not bear that much resemblance to the real McCoy.

kuaka, May 2, 12:15am
Puff pastry when made properly, is definitely more "puffy" than flakey pastry.

kuaka, May 2, 2:42am
and since my last post I have checked out several of my recipe books and I'm even more confused than ever now.Each one is different.