Making French dessert: A mille-feuille celebration for 1,000 reviews

This week on the show we make mille-feuilles – the “thousand layer pastry” – to celebrate 1,000 reviews of The Earful Tower podcast. Thanks to all who have left reviews over the years.

You might know a mille-feuille as a Napoleon, a custard slice, or a vanilla slice. But we all know it as delicious, especially when it’s freshly baked. 

For this episode, you’ll join our team as we prepare this iconic dessert at Cook’n With Class, complete with some pastry and chocolate tips from chef Christian. And remember: This isn’t a how-to guide for making the pastries, there are plenty of them online, this is more of a “join us as we do it”.

The Earful Tower podcast episode 

Listen below, it’ll be like you’re in the class with us and chef Christian (pictured below). You can also find the episode wherever you get your podcasts.

What exactly is a mille-feuille?

A mille-feuille is also known as a Napoleon, a custard slice, or a vanilla slice. Its French name translates to “thousand layers”, because the repeated folding of the pastry and butter leaves a dessert that has almost countless layers. And 1,000 layers of cake is a perfect celebration to mark 1,000 reviews of this very podcast channel (thank you!).

The mille-feuille originated in France and features puff pastry layered with pastry cream. Ours were layered with pistachio cream, vanilla cream, raspberry jam, crème pâtissière (pastry cream), and with raspberries, mint, and sprinkled pistachio nuts on top.

The desserts are very popular in French bakeries, you’d be hard-pressed to find a bakery without one. And the French will eat them as an after-lunch snack, for a small celebration, or just for the heck of it. Why wouldn’t you 🙂

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Building the mille-feuille

Of course, it would take a whole day to make a mille-feuille. Just preparing the pastry takes hours. For our class we focused on building the beautiful little towers of joy.

As you’ll hear in the podcast, our finished products varied in levels of beauty, and every single participant guessed correctly whose would be the least lovely looking. (No surprises… mine was likened to an unmade bed and a painting by Salvador Dali).

Here are some behind-the-scenes pictures.

We prepared this iconic dessert at Cook’n With Class, a Parisian cooking school in Montmartre. They offer all kinds of classes, including baking macarons and croissants too. Click here to book a class with them, and please drop “The Earful Tower” when you do, so they know I sent you.

Also, if you book a class before the end of this month, March 2024, I’ll send you my PDF guide to Paris for free as a thanks.

Here’s the podcast episode again – have a listen and a chuckle – we certainly had fun making it.

This episode was brought to you by Cook’n With Class, click here to book a class with them. Remember to add “The Earful Tower” when you make a booking so they know I sent you.

And remember: if you book a class before the end of this month, March 2024, I’ll send you my PDF guide to Paris for free as a thanks.

All pictures: Augusta Sagnelli