Recipe(tried): French Vanila Slice and Qs

After I read the instruction in the book, I set out to get all the ingredients,
except for the puff pastry. Since I was told that I could use the ready-made
one from supermarkets, I decided to "play cheat"! ^_^ I bought one pack of
Pampas Pastry Roll (500g, not enough as written in the books.) I thought I'd
give it a try for a smaller amount for my first attempt.

The instruction on the pack didn't say how long shall I bake it in the oven,
neither did it say at what degree of temperature. Therefore, I just did it as
what was said in the book, hot oven (200C), but only 20 minutes since I didn't
have as much of puff pastry. My puff pastry turned out to be extremely PUFFY )
Could be divided into two layers by hand) and the sides (width) were a bit
burnt, despite of my oven thermometer read as "200C" all the time while it was
baked! It looked NOTHING like the picture, nor the one we get from the French
Baker! IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FLAT! I began to panic. I thought that I must
have done something wrong here Well, I proceeded with the pastry cream and
made it into a single layer of "sandwich" because the puff pastry simply
couldn't hold more than one layer of the pastry cream. Despite of the awful
appearance, these Millie -Feuilles tasted great, slightly on the sweeter end.
But I would like to know what went wrong with that puff pastry? Perhaps I
should have just started from scratch instead of being lazy?

PS: I didn't use any jam as our local baker didn't use it. It was also
indicted in the book that it's not all bakers' choice to have jam in this
dessert. There is some more pastry cream left and I am going to use it in a
pie later.

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Millie-Feuilles (French Vanilla Slice)
from Traditional French Cookery by Larousse Curnonsky, p. 633
ISBN:0-85223-731-6

750g 1 lb. puff pastry (see note)
500ml/ 2 cups Confectioner's Custard (see note)
100 ml/ cup apricot/ red current jam (optional)
icing (confectioner's) sugar for dusting

Roll out the puff pastry in a single piece at least 1 cm/ inch thick. It
should be the same size as a baking sheet, i.e. 40-42 cm/ 16-17 inches long and
35 cm/ 14 inches wide. Place the pastry on the baking sheet and prick all over
with a fork. Bake in a hot oven (200C) for 28 minutes.
When the pastry is cooled, put it on a marble slab and cut into 3 strips of
equal length, each one 11- 12 cm/4 -5 inch wide. Spread the first strip
thickly with confectioner's custard and cover it completely with the second
strip. Spread this with jam and cover with third strip. Dust with icing
sugar. Cut into 8 equal portions with a very sharp knife, making rectangles
measuring 5x11-12cm/2z3 -5 inches.

Note: The Puff Pastry on p. 579 calls for 250g sifted flour, 10 g salt, 150 ml
water, 250 g good-quality unsalted butter. The direction is too long to type
up here. So I'd give it a pass.

Confectioner's Custard Cream/ Pastry Cream/ Creme Patissere, p. 584
500 ml / 2 cups milk
65 g / 7 T. flour
1 vanilla pod (bean)
150g /3/4 cup caster (granulated) sugar
1 pinch of salt
6 egg yolks

Bring the milk to the boil, add the vanilla pod, leave to infuse the strain.
Put the flour, sugar, salt and egg yolks in a saucepan. Mix together, beat for
a moment, then gradually add to the milk. Heat very gently until the custard
thickens, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to prevent from sticking to
the bottom of the pan. Simmer for a few minutes, still stirring, then transfer
to a bowl and leave to cool (taking care to stir from time to time.)
Variation:
For coffee-flavored custard, add strong coffee essence to taste just before
use. In this case, the vanilla is omitted.
For orange-flavoured custard, infuse the zest of an orange in the milk.