Mille-feuille, Somewhat Different Napoleon Cuts

Dough:

1. Knead the flour, salt, softened butter and water with the dough hook of the hand mixer until the dough is smooth and elastic. Shape it into a ball, cut deeply crosswise, cover and place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
2. Then fold the four segments at the top tips outwards and pull them apart so that the inner center is exposed. Put the cold butter in there whole and fold the 4 corners completely over it. The piece of butter must not look out from anywhere afterwards. Now carefully roll out the dough with the butter on the inside on a lightly floured work surface using a rolling pin to form a rectangle approx. 1 cm thick. Then fold in one of the narrow sides up to the middle and place the other narrow side over it (this is an easy tour with 3 layers of dough). Wrap the now smaller sheet of dough in cling film and place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
3. Then roll out the dough again as before, but now fold both sides evenly towards the middle and then fold it up like a book. (Now it is a double tour with 4 layers of dough) Wrap the dough in foil again and cool for 30 minutes. Then repeat the single tour and then the double tour including cooling times again.
4. Preheat the oven to 170 ° O / bottom heat. After the last cooling, roll out the dough on a slightly sugared – correspondingly large – piece of baking paper into a 5 mm thin rectangle of approx. 29 x 22 cm. Straighten the edges all around, prick the dough several times with a fork and then pull the baking paper onto the tray. The first baking time is 30 – 40 minutes. The dough should have risen and browned.
5. Then take the tray out of the oven (be careful!), Place another piece of baking paper on the surface of the dough and press the dough sheet with the flat of your hands so that the air escapes. Then place either a second tray or the gridiron on the baking paper that is now on top and turn the whole thing over with swing together with the lower tray. So now the lower baking paper is on top and the one on top to be pressed on is under the dough sheet. Then peel off the top paper, put the tray back in the oven and bake for another 30-40 minutes. The sheet of dough must be puffy, crispy, golden brown and slightly crumbly, so different from the puff pastry in a croissant or the like.
6. After baking, let the sheet of dough and paper cool down on a wire rack. In the meantime, let the 100 g orange jam melt in a saucepan over a mild heat and then brush the surface of the pastry plate with it. Leave something for the decoration in the later cast.
7. Then cut the plate in half lengthways with a very sharp knife and then cut the halves into 6 equal pieces. You always need 3 pieces for one cut. That results in 4 cuts.

Filling:

1. Heat the milk, cream and orange zest in a saucepan. Mix the egg, egg yolk, sugar and starch in a bowl. Stir in a little of the not yet boiling milk and then pour everything into the saucepan with the milk and stir in quickly. Then keep stirring until the mass thickens and the starch binds. Then transfer to a bowl to cool and cover the surface tightly with cling film so that no skin can form.

Completion:

1. Always use 3 identical pieces for the filling. Pour the orange pudding cream into a disposable piping bag and cut off the tip so that an opening of approx. 8 cm is created. Then fill the first plate completely with it, put the 2nd plate on top, fill it in again and place the 3rd on top as a conclusion. Press everything down lightly with the flat of your hand and scrape off any cream that may leak out with a knife.
2. Make all 4 cuts like this. Then make a very tough glaze from powdered sugar and juice and coat all 4 surfaces with it. If necessary, heat the rest of the jam again, make it liquid and pour it into a small piping bag. But only cut off its tip approx. 2-3 mm and then spray the jam lengthways in a thin stream onto the topping. Then put a toothpick or similar across from left to right, then from right to left, from left to right … etc. Pull through the topping and strips of jam. This is how the typical pattern is created.
3. Place the slices in the refrigerator to pull through and harden. ….. if they are not gone before ……… ;-))

For the puff pastry:

1. Preparation may sound very complicated, but it is by no means. It’s just a little time consuming because of the cooling times. So don’t worry, just trust, the result will be rewarded.