Sweet & Savory

SHF 5 - Mille-feuilles de Chocolat à la Banane & Puff Pastry with Whipped Ganache

Clement from À la Cuisine! came up with the most brilliant topic of puff pastry for the 5th installment of Sugar High Friday. Yay for Clement! J and I have never made puff pastry before. We've certainly eaten our share of it but have never been courageous enough to face this seemingly herculean task. This seemed like a good time to try it out and see what different creations fellow bloggers from around the world would come up with.

We hmmmed and hawed over our collection of cookbooks. After much meditation, debate, and drooling, we reached a consensus. We would create an adaptation of Pierre Hermé's Mille-feuilles de Chocolat à l' Orange. This beauty had a 2-page photo spread all to itself in the book, designed to show off its perfection in minute detail. To make things a little more interesting for us, it would be banana flavored instead of orange - sort of a different take on the all-American banana cream pie or the boston cream pie.

Our resulting Mille-feuilles de Chocolat à la Banane were not complete successes but they were far from failures. The banana crème mousseline came out lovely - light and airy with an appropriate amount of banana flavor. The mille-feuilles, however, did not come out quite as lovely as we had hoped. The initial bite is a buttery flaky goodness, but then a strange salty aftertaste lingers. We know that salt is sometimes used to bring out sweet flavors but this was too salty. It ruined the taste of the puff pastry. Was the strange salty aftertaste because of the salt? The unsweetened cocoa powder? Was it supposed to taste like this? (Hope not!) We were fairly certain we had measured out 30 grams of salt as specified in the recipe. Was French salt different from American kosher salt? Or were we not suppose to use kosher salt? So many questions ran through our mind.

Unsatisfied with our first attempt at puff pastry, we decided that we were going to try our hands at making it again but this time with the puff pastry ingredients and ratios from Thomas Keller's French Laundry cookbook. The filling would be whipped chocolate ganache instead of banana pastry cream to try out a different combination of flavors.

There was significant improvement on the flavor, no weird aftertaste, just a hint of salt to complement the sweet chocolate ganache. This second puff pastry showed great improvement in flavor over our first attempt. However, the center sections of the puff pastry were dense and thick, not at all flaky like what we expected. Maybe we should have baked it a little longer?

However imperfect the puff pastry was, it was still a lovely dessert to eat!

Of course we will continue on our quest for the ultimate puff pastry... But maybe after a short break as we have been eating an awful lot of puff pastry lately. SHF this time turned out to stand for Sugar High February for us. :)

Banana Crème Pâtisseière
adapted from La Pâtisserie de Pierre Hermé by Pierre Hermé and The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller

• 6 large bananas, peeled
• 1 liter whole milk
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 250 g caster sugar
• 100 g cornstarch
• 240 g egg yolks
• 100 g unsalted butter

Place the bananas, milk and vanilla in a large saucepan over low heat. Cover the bananas with a sheet of paper towel to keep them submerged. Continue to heat on low for 10 to 15 minutes, keeping it just under the point of simmering, so that the bananas poach in the hot liquid. Remove the saucepan from heat when the bananas become soft but not mushy. Remove the paper towel and the bananas and discard. Strain the remaining contents of the saucepan several times to remove any bits of banana from the poaching liquid. Place this banana-infused milk back into a large saucepan and bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, whisk together the sugar, constarch and egg yolks, until smooth and pale in color. Pour about 1 cup of the simmering milk over the egg mixture and beat vigorously before stirring it into the rest of the milk. Bring to a boil, stirring consistently with the whisk. Allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes, then pour at once into a bowl placed in an ice water bath. Continue to beat from time to time. When the temperature of the "crème" reaches approximately 140°F (60°C), add the butter and stir until fully combined. Let chill until ready to use.

Caramelized Chocolate Puff Pastry
adapted from La Pâtisserie de Pierre Hermé by Pierre Hermé, Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé written by Dorie Greenspan and The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller

Détrempe

• 1 kg fine wheat flour
• 30 g kosher salt
• 10 g white vinegar
• 420 g water
• 260 g melted butter

Beurrage

• 800 g butter
• 180 g powdered cocoa

For the détrempe, mix together the wheat flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the water and vinegar and stir to combine. Then add the melted butter and beat with a rubber spatula until the dough comes together. Turn out the dough onto your work surface and knead for 1 to 2 minutes before gathering it into a flat ball. Wrap in a plastic film and refrigerate it while you start the beurrage.

For the beurrage, place the butter on a cold surface, such as a marble slab, and pound it with a rolling pin to make it malleable. Fold it over itself once or twice and pound it out again. The butter should now be soft but still cold and not oily. Sprinkle the cocoa over the butter and use a plastic dough scraper to cut the cocoa into the butter until the butter has a fairly consistent cocoa color. Form the beurrage into a 9-inch square and set aside. If it is no longer chilled, place it in the refrigerator while doing the next step.

Clean the work surface and dust it with flour. Lay the détrempe on the work surface and roll it out to a 12-inch square. Mark a diamond shape in it, connecting the center of each side. Dust the dough lightly with flour. Roll out the corners of the square (the triangles formed by the diamond) so that the points extend for about 6 inches, leaving the center mound thicker than the edges.

Lay the beurrage on the diamond, adjusting its size to fit the dough as necessary. Fold the rolled out dough flaps over the beurrage, stretching them and overlapping them as necessary to totally encase the butter and form a square package. Seal the edges by pressing lightly with the rolling pin. Dust with flour. Gently press the package into a rectangle approximately 10 inches by 20 inches. Place on a tray and clean the work surface. If it is warm and the butter seems soft, refrigerate it for 30 minutes before continuing.

For the first double turns, place the dough on the work surface with a short side facing you. Roll out the dough from top to bottom or bottom to top, using even pressure, into a rectangle approximately 12 inches by 24 inches. It is important to keep the edges of the pastry as straight as possible during rolling, or else you may not get even folds and the pastry may not rise as it should. This may be facilitated by flipping over the dough, vertically, once in a while to roll on the other side. As you roll, sprinkle the work surface with flour as necessary to prevent sticking. Also, be careful that the butter does not start to leak out from the sides (as will occur with more rolling). If it does, seal the hole with some flour and refrigerate the dough for several minutes before continuing.

Fold over both short ends of the dough to meet in the center, then fold one side over the other to form four layers. Turn the dough 90 degrees to the left, so that the fold is on your left, and repeat the rolling and folding a second time to finish the first set of double turns. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 2 hours. Repeat the double turns a second time and refrigerate again for 2 hours. Repeat the double turns one last time for a total of 6 single turns.

At this point, the puff pastry can be frozen if desired. If using right away, use a pastry cutter to cut the puff pastry into thirds. Each third will be rolled out to fit in one half sheet baking pan. Prepare the baking pan by lining it with parchment paper and then brushing the parchment paper lightly with water. Reserve another half sheet baking pan and parchment paper of the same size for later in the baking process. Roll out the puff pastry until it is 4 millimeters thick. Place the rolled out dough onto the moistened parchment paper, prick it with a fork, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. This will allow the flour's gluten to relax so the pastry will rise evenly and maintain its size and shape under heat.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C). Remove the baking sheet from the refrigerator, lift off and discard the plastic wrap, and dust the top of the puff pastry evenly with caster sugar. Slide the baking sheet into the oven, close the oven door, and immediately lower the oven temperature to 375°F (190°C). Bake the pastry for 15 minutes, during which time it will rise and begin to brown. Pull the baking sheet from the oven and cover the pastry with the reserved parchment sheet. Lightly place the second baking sheet on top. Carefully turn the whole setup over and place it on a work surface. Pull away the first baking sheet and parchment sheet so that the uncaramelized side of the puff pastry is now the side you see. Sift confectioners' sugar evenly over this side and return to the oven for another 5 minutes to allow the sugar to melt.

At this time, remove the baking sheet from the oven and increase the oven temperature to 475°F (245°C). Once the oven is done preheating, return the baking sheet to the oven and bake until the sugar is caramelized and the pastry is starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Be sure to watch closely so you don't end up burning the pastry. Pull the baking sheet from the oven, place the pastry on a cooling rack, and allow it to cool completely before assembling the mille-feuilles.

Mille-feuilles de Chocolat à la Banane
adapted from La Pâtisserie de Pierre Hermé by Pierre Hermé

• 1 kg Banana Crème Pâtissière
• 200 g single pouring cream
• Caramelized Chocolate Puff Pastry

Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Fold this gently into the banana crème pâtissière until fully combined, to form banana crème mousseline.

Cut the puff pastry to the desired size. You will need three layers of the same size for each mille-feuille assembly. Spread or pipe the banane crème mousseline over the first layer and cover it with a second layer of chocolate puff pastry. Repeat this process once more and decorate with confectioners' sugar. Serve as soon as possible.