Passion Fruit Napoleon

Mille Feuille also known as Napoleon is a french dessert that usually consists in 3 layers of thin puff pastry with pastry cream between . Of course my version of Napoleon isn't  as simple but is certainly as delicious. In one of the layers I used passion fruit mousseline instead of pastry cream all the way, it adds a tanginess profile to the dessert and makes it more interesting, from my point of view it is too safe to go only with buttery puff pastry and sweet pastry cream. A fruit mousseline is basically a fruit pastry cream that uses fruit juice instead of milk. 

Layered desserts are great but there is one little thing that annoys me: the filling oozing all over the place leaving you with a crust only and a sad memory of what all that flavors together would taste like when biting together. To avoid that, I decided to increase the amount of cornstarch in my pastry cream in order to make it thicker and easier to hold together  after the first bite.

To me there is an incoherence in the baking process of the puff pastry for this dessert. A puff pastry is known for its hundreds of layers characteristics that makes it rise like craaaazy, right? Well, for this dessert specifically we do want the hundreds of layers but not the rising part . In order to achieve this  Mille Feuille requirement the dough must be baked trapped between two baking trays that will put some weight over it and avoid the crazy rise. The result is pretty satisfactory, a super crunchy crust still thin enough to keep our dessert "good looking". 

Refrigerate your Napoleon before consuming for at least one hour, it will help the cream to hold together and besides that I think there is nothing like a cold dessert, right?

for 6 small napoleons 

Ingredients: 

500g puff pastry - to learn how to make your own puff pastry click here 

for passion fruit mousseline:

1/2 cup passion fruit puree dissolved in 1/2 cup water (if using other fruit juice use 1 cup of the juice and no water)

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 tbsp cornstarch 

100g cold unsalted butter (1 stick)

for pastry cream:

500g whole milk 

1/2 vanilla bean 

4 egg yolks 

75g granulated sugar 

20g flour

30g cornstarch 

Confectionary sugar to sprinkle on top 

2 tbsp toasted skinless almonds (chopped)

Music List 

A menina dança- Marisa Monte
Always on the run- Yuksek
Ahiê- João Donato
Host- Alex Winston 

Tres letrinhas- Marisa Monte

ps: the portuguese recipe that I was going to make didn't work out the way I wanted so I changed for Napoleons. I hope you like it too !