Custard square
Mille-feuille
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| Alternative names | Napoleon, gâteau de mille-feuilles, vanilla slice or custard slice |
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| Type | Pastry |
| Place of origin | France |
| Main ingredients | Puff pastry, pastry cream, powdered sugar |
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The mille-feuille (French pronunciation: [mil fœj], "thousand-leaf"),vanilla slice or custard slice, also known as the Napoleon, is a French pastry whose exact origin is unknown. Its modern form was influenced by improvements made by Marie-Antoine Carême.
Traditionally, a mille-feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry (pâte feuilletée), alternating with two layers of pastry cream (crème pâtissière) The top pastry layer is dusted with confectioner's sugar, and sometimes cocoa, pastry crumbs, or pulverized seeds (e.g. roasted almonds). Alternatively the top is glazed with icing or fondant in alternating white (icing) and brown (chocolate) stripes, and combed.
All the elements of the recipe are present in numerous cookbooks since, at least, the 16th century but the exact origin of the mille-feuille is unknown. The earliest mention of the name mille-feuille itself appears in 1733 in an English-language cookbook written by French chef Vincent La Chapelle. Unlike the modern cake, the 18th-century Mille-feuille is served stuffed with jam and marmalade instead of cream.
In French, the first mention of the Mille-feuille appears a little later, in 1749, in a cookbook by Menon.
Menon, La science du maître d'hôtel cuisinier, avec des observations sur la connaissance & propriétés des alimens , 1749, p.367. Available online.
The word mille-feuille is not used again in the recipe books of the 18th century. However, under the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, several of the fanciest Parisian pastry shops appear to have sold the cake. During the 19th century, all recipes are filled with jam with the exception of the 1876 recipe by Urbain Dubois which is served with Bavarian cream.
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