Parve Mille Feuille or Napoleon

In my never ending quest for domesticity, I decided that I wanted to make the perfect Shabbat dessert; I wanted to make a Mille feuille! Crazy, maybe, but I want what I want, so I scoured the net for pastry cream recipes, bought all the necessary ingredients and low and behold: Success!

It was delicious and beautiful to look at (that is before I tried to slice it, that little detail I will leave to your own discretion, my suggestion, take a picture before you cut it). Anyway, if you’re bored, or just a glutton for punishment like me, try this recipe. Obviously, it could be made dairy, which I’ve done, even more delicious, but I like making it for Shabbat. Here’s what you’ll need:

(makes 6 large individual or one medium full Mille feuille

1 package kosher puff dough

1 carton nutriwhip 

¼ cup sugar

1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
2 large egg yolks
2-1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 

(if you don't want to bother making creme patissiere, just bring to a simmer 1 cup of milk or almnod milk and one package instant vanilla pudding. Once cooled, mix into whipped cream for a thicker whipped cream full of flavor).

¾ cup icing sugar

1 tsp cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Open up the puff dough, cut into 3 equal parts and roll them out to about a half inch thickness and roughly the same size. Place each piece on parchment paper sprayed with Pam, dock the pastry with a fork all over then cover with another sheet pan. So basically you need 3 sheep pan sandwiches (6 sheet pans total), place each on a rack in the oven and let bake for 25 minutes. Then remove the top sheet pans and bake till golden brown, it needs to be well baked so that you can crunch through it and not have flakes to chew through. If at any point you see the dough puffing up too much, cover it again with the sheet pan. The idea is that you want nice even sheet of crispy dough without and distortions in shape. Once ready, let cool.

In a small saucepan, whisk the soy milk, sugar, salt, eggs & cornstarch and slowly bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Once bubbles break, let it boil for 30 sec to a minute at which point it should have thickened up, then remove from heat and add in the vanilla extract and whisk again. Cover with plastic wrap pressing the plastic to the cream itself, this will prevent it from making a skin, and then refrigerate till needed. 
In another large bowl, whip the nutriwhip with ¼ cup sugar until you get stiff peaks.

To assemble, start by trimming the puff dough sheets to the same size with a serrated knife, place the first sheet on a large platter or plate, make sure to put parchment underneath (will help for clean-up) then spoon on the pastry cream to about 1 inch thickness, try and smooth it out as evenly as possible. You might be tempted to put more cream then necessary, don’t, because it will just overlap. Then gently place the second sheet of dough and spoon over about the same amount of whip cream, smooth to an even layer and cover with last piece. In a small bowl, whisk the icing sugar with 1 tsp of water to start. What you need is an icing thin enough to spread but thick enough so that it won’t run, spread most of the icing (reserve a part of it in the bowl) so that you have a nice white layer of icing. Then in the bowl, add the cocoa powder and mix then put in a piping bag with a very thin tip (you can use a zip lock and cut a very small hole at the tip), now carefully make straight lines on the icing at about 1 inch apart from each other, then let set for 30 seconds and then drag a toothpick across from the other end to make a design. I will show you a very poor diagram to help you visualize (hi hi) then you will need to clean up the cake by trimming the sides of the dessert with the knife so that everything is nice and even. Chill it and when ready to serve my only tip is use a long serrated knife, good luck!