Mille Feuille, Akis Petretzikis Style

Directions

1. Place a pot over medium heat.
2. Reserve 100 ml of milk in a glass and set aside until needed.
3. Add the remaining milk to the pot.
4. Slice the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds.
5. Add both the seeds and the vanilla bean to the pot and let the mixture come to a boil.
6. In a bowl, add the egg yolks and the remaining sugar.
7. Whisk until the sugar dissolves completely.
8. Add the reserved 100 ml of milk and the corn  starch and whisk to incorporate. Do not add the corn starch before the milk, because it will not become incorporated correctly.
9. As soon as the mixture comes to a boil, add ladlefuls of it to the bowl with the yolks, while whisking continuously.
10. As soon as you have added all of the hot mixture to the bowl, transfer it all back to the pot.
11. Whisk continuously until the creme patisserie thickens.
12. Give it a taste to make sure the taste of flour has been cooked away. When you can no longer taste the flour, it is ready.
13. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours to chill completely.
14. Preheat oven to 190* C Fan.
15. Lay out a sheet of puff pastry on to a clean working surface.
16. Dust with icing sugar so that it can caramlize while baking and this way it will not soak up any moisture from the cream and become soggy. It will stay nice and crunchy.
17.  Use a rolling pin and gently roll it over the sugar so it can sink in to the pastry. Pierce it all over with a fork.
18. Each sheet of pastry should yield 12 pieces, so quarter it and then cut each quarter in to 3 pieces.
19. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
20. Place the pieces of pastry on them, sugar side down.
21. Dust with some icing sugar and bake for 15-20 minutes.
22. When ready, remove from oven and set aside to cool.
23. Beat the chilled heavy cream in a mixer, using the whisk attachment until it becomes thick and fluffy, like a thick yogurt.
24. When your creme patisserie has chilled, beat it in a mixer for about 20 seconds, just to make it fluffy.
25. Combine the whipped cream with the creme patisserie using a spatula to gently fold, until they are completely incorporated.
26. Divide the filling in to 2 pastry bags.

To assemble

1. Pipe a small amount of filling on the bottom of a serving platter. This is done to keep our sweets in place.
2. Place six pieces of puff pastry over the filling and pipe out a generous amount of filling over them.
3. Repeat the same process until you have created three layers.
4. Using a spoon, make sure you cover the sides of the sweet with the top layer of filling.
5. Crush the remaining pieces of puff pastry in a bowl and sprinkle over the tops and sides.
6. Dust with icing sugar, cut in to pieces and serve!