October Daring Bakers: Mille Feuilles

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I am a day late posting this, but the important part is I am posting it.

This month, for the Daring Bakers’, Suz of Serenely Full challenged us to make mille feuilles.

Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!

‘Mille-feuille’ is French for ‘a thousand leaves’ (or ‘layers’), which is very apt, as it contains both layers of puff pastry (usually three) and layers within each pastry sheet. It can be filled with layers of jam; mainly raspberry, whipped cream or cheese, and usually topped with powdered sugar, or fondant. It is then usually decorated or garnished with a coat of fondant, with chocolate strings made into a design. It may even contain a filling of pastry cream, as per our challenge recipe.

The challenge required us to make puffy pastry from scratch. Now, I am not a novice to puff pastry- having made it before. Check out my Puff Pastry 101 post here. But I have never tried to make or eaten mille feuilles. So it was something new.

Making puff pastry (or pâte feuilletée) basically involves a simple pastry dough, which is folded around sheet of butter (the beurrage). You then roll out your butter pastry package, fold it, roll it out, fold it, etc. – creating seams of butter that will puff up into distinct crispy layers when baked.

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Garam Masala Tuesdays: Gluten Free Ragi paranthas

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I have been trying to perfect this recipe for some time now.

Growing up, in our family and in even in V’s, chappati, roti, phulka were interchangeable words for the same thing. When I came here, my friend who is from the south of India said that for them there is a difference between roti and chappati. She said, that in the south, chapati is traditionally made using a 3 fold process turning the dough into a triangular shape and then rolled out into a circle. Each layer is well oiled, resulting in thin layers. In my family (and even V’s), this is how we make a plain parantha.

A roti (or what we north indians also call chappati or phulka) are kind of like indian styled tortillas. Roti is a traditional unleavened whole-wheat bread which, depending on the cook, can be as thin as paper or thick as pita. Small portions of the dough are rolled out into discs much like a Mexican tortilla, using a rolling pin. The rolled-out dough is thrown on the preheated dry skillet and cooked on both sides. Sometimes after partially cooking it on the skillet/tawa, it is then put directly on a high flame, which makes it blow up like a balloon. The hot air cooks the chapati rapidly from the inside. In some parts of northern India (e.g. Punjab), this is called a phulka (that which has been inflated). After cooking, the top of the chappati/roti can be slathered with some ghee or butter. Deep fried versions are known as “poori”.

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October Secret Recipe Club

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By the time this post goes live, I will have finished my One Week Raw Diet and most definitely will be feasting on some hot, cooked food. I plan to make dhoklas for my breakfast and in all probability that is what I will be eating the time this post goes live.

It definitely was a difficult week, with the dinner time being the toughest but honestly not as difficult as I thought it would be. I was sure I would quit by Day 3 or Day 4, and my body would be really weak, and would have a constant headache. The last time I went on a diet (quite a few years back) was when I tried the GM diet. By Day 4 of the GM diet, I had a headache and decided it wasn’t worth it and quit with a bowl of Maggi in my hand.

This diet, though, has been different. I did not feel weak at all. My skin improved- I had my periods when I started so I had the occasional pimple before that but I could feel my skin more bright than usual. I have lost about 5 pounds since the start of this month- which includes the one week of the gluten free sugar free diet and then one week I went raw. It might not seem much, but I was never going for anything drastic. My goal is to lose about 5-6 kgs (10-12 pounds) by the end of this month. I will be continuing on my gluten and sugar free diet till end October, with Halloween being the day I quit. I will talk more about how my raw diet went and share any other information that could be helpful to someone planning to do the same. But all that will be in another post. Today I will be sharing this lemon yogurt cake, which is neither raw, nor gluten free, nor is it sugar free, but if what I have heard about it is true, its one cake recipe you would want to try.

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