The Daring Bakers October 2012 Challenge: Layering Up
We were away for the weekend with friends to the Isle of Arran, and I thought I had written a post and scheduled it to auto-post on the 27th. Turns out what I actually did was write about 2 sentences, and save it as a draft.
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| Rather flat Mille Feuille! |
This challenge was, by all measures, a fairly unmitigated fail for me.
I burned my first lot of pastry, and it was good only for christening our new food-waste recycling bin.
I intended to fill it with strawberry marshmallow mousse, instead of pastry cream, and the mousse was made and setting up before I cremated the pastry, so we just ate it as it was. It was made with fresh strawberries, marshmallows and coconut milk and was lovely, although unphotogenic!
For my second attempt I used some spare ready made puff pastry, which I know is a big cheat, just so that I could try to create something vaguely Mille Feuille-ish.
I then didn't put enough pastry cream in it, and then because it was already a fail, I didn't want to go to the effort of mixing up icing to adorn something so unimpressive, so I topped it with jam!
On the plus side, I did manage to make a very tasty and effective dairy free pastry cream, or creme patisserie if you're feeling continental, using almond milk. So that's something!
Almond Pastry Cream
- 500ml almond milk
- 50g icing sugar
- 50g cornflour
- 2 egg yolks
- a few drops almond extract
Put all of the ingredients in a small pan and blitz with a hand blender until completely smooth and mixed.
Slowly bring to a medium heat, stirring constantly, until the cream thickens.
Once it coats the back of a spoon and leaves a trail in the surface, remove from the heat.
Allow to cool slightly, then transfer to a bowl or tub.
Cover with a sheet of baking parchment on the surface to prevent it from forming a skin.
Chill for at least an hour before using, preferably over night.
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| It's also good on crumble! Super crumble to be precise! |
