Mille-feuille and its origins
The millefeuille, an emblematic dessert of French pastry-making, takes its name from the thin layers of puff pastry that make it up, traditionally filled with pastry cream, covered with icing sugar or fondant and decorated with chocolate motifs.
Its origins date back to 1651, when François Pierre de La Varenne mentions it in his book Le Cuisinier françois. Later, in the 18th century, Marie-Antoine Carême perfected the recipe and popularized Millefeuille at royal courts. In 1867, pastry chef Adolphe Seugnot made it a specialty of his Parisian store. Since then, it has become a fixture in French pastry shop windows.
Chefs revisit the Mille-feuille
In terms of flavor, texture and form, the three components of the mille-feuille (puff pastry, cream and fondant) are regularly revisited by top pastry chefs. Discover the recipes of our ambassadors:
Belgian pastry chef Marc Ducobu, a member of Relais Desserts, proposes a daring MILLE-FEUILLE XXL, where an inverted puff pastry, set vertically, hosts alternating praline mousseline and feuillantine crunch. The whole is enhanced by delicate caramel-glazed choux, generously topped with a St-Rémy brandy-scented cream.
The CAMILLE dessert, designed by Alexis Bouillet, is built around a base of hazelnut praline crunch and Cointreau caramel cream. It features an insert of almond and orange joconde cookie, accompanied by a mandarin confit at the heart of an orange and Cointreau mousse. A milk chocolate glaze delicately envelops this gourmet creation.
With the MILLEFEUILLE SPIRIT verrine, Emmanuel Ryon, MOF glacier, overturns the codes of the traditional millefeuille to offer a daring and unexpected experience. Imagine white chocolate ice cream alongside asparagus cream, punctuated by a hint of semi-candied asparagus tip. A pistachio paste adds body and character, while a Cointreau scum crowns this totally offbeat creation. A reinvented millefeuille, on the borderline between sweet and savoury, that challenges and delights the taste buds.
Immerse yourself in the gourmet world of Otto Tay, world pastry champion, with this refined new creation, TOPAZ, which combines the intense flavors of chocolate, the sweetness of caramel, the crunch of roasted hazelnuts and the aromatic depth of Rémy Martin cognac.
