Blueberry and lemon millefeuille

A simple and elegant dinner-party dessert.

Blueberry and lemon millefeuille. Credit: Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy

• serves

  6

• prep

  30 minutes

• cook

  15 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 115 g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
• 250 g shop-bought puff pastry
• 200 g (or 1 punnet) blueberries

Cream

• 165 g whipping cream
• 25 g icing sugar
• Seeds of 1 vanilla pod or 2 drops of vanilla extract
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon and a squeeze of juice

Hot chocolate sauce

• 165 ml double cream
• 100 g good milk or dark chocolate (or a combo of both), finely chopped or grated
• 25 g butter
• 1 generous tbsp golden syrup

Chilling time: 30 minutes.

• You will need a piping bag fitted with a 1cm straight nozzle

Instructions

1. Line a large baking tray with baking paper. Dust the work surface with lots of icing sugar and roll out the pastry to a rectangle just larger than 27 cm x 30 cm, trimming the edges straight. It should be super thin, as thin as you can get it. Cut out 18 rectangles about 9 cm long and 5 cm wide and place them on the prepared baking tray. Sprinkle with lots of icing sugar and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F / Gas Mark 6).
3. Remove the pastry from the fridge and bake in the oven for 5 minutes, then remove from the oven and sprinkle the pastry with more icing sugar. Return to the oven and bake for a further 5 minutes, or until the pastry turns a golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.
4. For the cream, put the cream, icing sugar and vanilla in a large bowl and whip until medium-stiff peaks form. Fold in the lemon zest and juice to taste, then scoop the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm straight nozzle.
5. To make the chocolate sauce, heat the cream in a pan until just boiling. Remove the pan from the heat, add the chocolate and butter, don’t stir and leave to stand for 5 minutes, then stir until everything is just mixed in and looks smooth and uniform. Add the golden syrup and stir a couple of times. Set aside.
6. Place one of the pastry thins on a serving plate. Pipe blobs of cream over the pastry (see picture) and put the blueberries between the cream. Put another pastry thin on top and repeat with one more layer. Sprinkle the top layer with more icing sugar. Repeat until all the pastries and cream are used up. Serve with the hot chocolate sauce poured all over.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.