Take 1 - Vanilla Custard Slice [Mille-feuille]

 Asalam Alaykum / Greetings Dear Readers,

My 100th post! i finally made my favourite pastry Alhamdulillah: Vanilla Custard Slice, i made 4 large. 8 mini versions would have been nice but bigger was better in this case.

Remember a while ago, i discovered that pre-made pastry sheets contained alcohol or at least the one i came across did. So, in order for me to avoid that and to still 'cheat' a little, i made my puff pastry from a packet mix, this one to be precise:

and i don't really feel like i cheated as i had to do most of the hard work i.e. rolling the pastry, folding, repeat x 6! but it did help me cut the boring corner of, weighing the ingredients & cutting chunks of butter/vegetable fat into pieces!

Mille Feuille is french in origin, who would have guessed?! usually consisting of 3 layers of puff pastry alternating with 2 layers of filling.

I and probably many other Brits, consider this particular type with the 2 layers pastry, 1 layer of custard, to be a British pastry as it is available in just about every bakery you walk into in the UK, that's if you get in there before it's sells out!

The classic vanilla flavouring in this pastry, simply works. It's savoury notes help balance out just some of sweetness in the custard and the icing.

Also the Feathered Icing you see on the top is a relatively new technique to me and i have to say I'm impressed at how it lifts desserts up from average looking to fancy.

Usually to make the chocolate part of  feathered icing you would first make the very thick white glace icing, mixing in a little bit of melted butter to give it a shiny finish. Portion a small amount off into another bowl, add in a few drops of chocolate essence and there you have it BUT i didn't have any chocolate essence, so what to do? Nutella to the rescue! i added a couple of teaspoons along with a drop of water to thin the icing out just a little.

All you have to do then is spread using a palette knife, the white glace icing over the tops of each pastry. Fill a small piping bag with your chocolate icing, i used one fitted with a tiny circle nozzle but you can make a disposable one out of baking paper if your skilled enough, I'm not.

Pipe lines of chocolate icing across the white icing . Then all you need to do is drag a skewer through all the lines, instead of working from right to left you move the skewer from top (where the white icing starts) to the bottom. I'm not really good at explaining am i? so here, you can see the same technique being used on a cake.

I wasn't 100% happy with how these vanilla custard slices turned out, the ratio of custard/ creme patisserie to pastry is usually bigger. That being said, i had no complaints from the husband or child that taste tested and even had requests to make them again, which i plan to do in the near future in sha Allah and at that point i will post my recipe and more pictures, showing how to make the pastry etc

I'd be interested to know, what is your favourite bakery item and when did you last treat yourself to it?