My first Mille-feuille

They say pregnant women have cravings. I am not so 100% sure because well I had cravings before. Since I live in a country foreign to mine, I miss a lot of things that scream "home" and many of those are food related. I think that the tongue has a great memory of tastes. Sometimes I remember my mother's cooking or a particular dish I had in a good restaurant and it brings back memories. But if I am pretty good at Romanian main dishes, there have been many desserts I've missed.

You're going to say this recipe is not Romanian. Yes and no, it has a French name but in Romania it is also very popular, it's called a cremşnit, it is also a Hungarian staple food, named kremes, sometimes served with a layer of jam. I just love how food "travels", don't you?.

The mille-feuille or vanilla slice recipe I found online is the closest thing to the one my grandmother used to make. (Missing the country food and the family recipes, great combo, but not having pregnancy cravings, no, no). You can read more about the different types of this cake on wikipedia  I made mine without the icing because that's how I remember it from Grandma (and I was running dangerously low on icing sugar for the big batch I made, maybe next time).

The recipe is this (so simple, I don't believe I never tried before):

Crème pâtissière (vanilla cream) as shown in the video below (funny the guy, I can see him bossing around
the kitchen staff)
Puff pastry (I used a roll of 275gr for about 6 not very big servings)

In translation:
250 ml milk
1 vanilla stick (or vanilla extract)
50 gr sugar
30gr flour

You can double or triple or even quadruple the quantities, to suit your needs. I did 4x but I have leftover.

Bring milk to a boil with the vanilla stick or a few drops of extract. In the mean time whisk the eggs with the butter until they turn white, add the flour. Remove the vanilla stick and pour milk over the mixture and stir well.

Put the whole mixture back on the stove and after it starts to boil, stir for about 3-5 minutes until it hardens.

Pour in a glass container covered in plastic film, close it and put the container in the fridge for later use.

Once you did everything this guy said and left the crème pâtissière in the fridge for as long as you could, bake the puff pastry sheet (or sheets) in the oven, for about 15 minutes at 180°C. Use a fork to make holes in the pastry so it doesn't swell. Cut the pastry in order to make as many layers as you want (2 or 3 should be enough)

Now you can assemble the layers. A nice touch is to crumble the pastry on the top layer and sprinkle sugar, like I did, here. Sorry for the bad picture, I had it for breakfast, I couldn't resist but the light was not great.

PS. Last time I said I would share the recipe of stuffed kitchen I made to go with the ratatouille. Unfortunately I have no pictures to show you I can only tell you I used smoked sausages and cheese to stuff the boneless chicken thighs. The guys will have a nice lunch today!

Ok, I stop with the food and promise my next two posts will not be food related. Later.