Caramelized Phyllo Napoleons with Vanilla Pastry Cream and Raspberries

There are times when a certain dessert occurs to be a great hit amidst our friends and simultaneously extremely easy and non-demanding for completing. Here's one such case. Apparently everybody fell in love for the crunchy caramelized phyllo.

These Napoleons turned out also to be very photogenic and we just couldn't restrain ourselves of snapping a shot of them of any possible angle. So. please, excuse the exuberance of similar photos.

Tea: Any Japanese green tea would be relevant to this dessert. We enjoyed it with Tamaryokucha Imperial. 

Caramelized Phyllo Napoleons Recipe:

Idea inspired from Baking Obsession

Makes 6 mille-feuilles


Caramelized Phyllo:

• 4 phyllo sheets;
• 3 Tbsp butter, melted;
• 4 Tbsp sugar.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Prepare another baking sheet and a sheet of parchment paper. Set aside.

Gently spread a phyllo sheet on the counter top. (Keep the rest of the phyllo sheets under plastic wrap to prevent them from drying.) Brush with melted butter and sprinkle some sugar on top. Cover with the second phyllo sheet, brush with butter and sprinkle some sugar. Repeat. Layer the fourth phyllo sheet, press it slightly against the other layers and using a 7cm ring cutter cut out rounds - it makes about 20 rounds.

Sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on the lined with paper baking sheet. Arrange the phyllo rounds on top of the sugared paper. Sprinkle some sugar on top of the rounds. Cover with parchment paper then place a baking sheet or other baking pan on top to press down the rounds. Bake for around 8 minutes or until golden brown.

Bake the scraps as well, they don't look like a great matter but they are delicious and could be used as decoration, although we ate them plain.


Vanilla Pastry Cream:

• 2 egg yolks;
• 300 ml whole milk;
• 25 gr corn starch dissolved in a couple of spoons cold water;
• 60 gr sugar;
• vanilla seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod;
• 30 gr butter.

Combine yolks, sugar and starch and beat until pale.

In a small saucepan bring milk and vanilla to a simmer then pour it in a thin stream over the yolk mixture beating all the time. Return the mixture into the saucepan and cook to 85ºC (until it thickens). Remove from the heat and stir in the butter. Place the cream in a bowl and cover tightly with stretch foil in order not to form skin. Let cool, then refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Assemblage:

Assemble just before serving.

Pipe vanilla pastry cream in the middle of a caramelized phyllo round then arrange raspberries to encircle the pastry cream. Pipe a drop of pastry cream in the core hollow of each raspberry in order to steady them. Repeat until there are 3 layers of caramelized phyllo.