Vegan Millefoglie

Let’s learn how to make a vegan puff pastry and how to use it to prepare a super tasty dessert, that everyone will love!

I’m the kind of person who loves challenges. It’s a way to push yourself to the limit and get to know yourself. The first time I thought about a vegan millefoglie I was sure I could possibly blow everyone away due its taste and consistency. And that’s exactly what happened. The classic method takes several hours because you need to fold the puff pastry dough many times and place it back in the fridge for a long period of time. For the version I’ll be showing you today the method is simplified cos it requires less time but I can assure you the outcome is really something life changing! 

If you also like to challenge yourself I suggest you to take some of your time, put on some music you prefer and… let’s start!

WHAT YOU NEED

For the puff pastry:

• 85 g cold water (place in the fridge at 4C)
• 5 g himalayan salt
• 250 g manitoba flour
• 250 g frozen non-hydrogenated vegan margarine
• handful caster sugar

For the chocolate chantilly cream:

• 400 ml soy whipped cream
• 150 ml sweetened soy milk
• 40 g cornstarch
• 40 g cacao powder

WHAT TO DO

To make the millefoglie layer (puff pastry) put all the ingredients in a heavy-duty food processor and mix at highest speed. If your tool is too small to process all the ingredients at once just divide the process in two times. The operation should be quite fast cos the secret for a good millefoglie pastry is to avoid the margarine in the dough to soften too much. Help yourself with a tamper if your blender provides one so you can push the ingredients towards the blades. When the flour absorbs all the margarine and an omogenous dough forms take it out from the food processor and put it on a non sticky parchment paper sheet sprinkling some manitoba flour beneath to avoid it to stick on it. Flatten it into a rectangular shape, wrap it in plastic wrap, and place it into the fridge for an hour, or the freezer for 20-30 minutes. Once it’s cold and stiff, dust the surface of the dough with flour and start folding it into thirds, like a letter. Once done, flatten it again with the rolling pin and dust the surface of the pastry with some flour. Repeat the folding again and again giving it a 90-degree everytime. Every now and then make sure the pastry does not get soft and sticky. If this happens put it back to the freezer for 15- 20 minutes. I’m not going to tell you what the dimensions of the rectangle should be. It doesn’t matter. As long as you are able to fold it into thirds it’s just fine. And I’m not going to tell you exactly how many folds you should make either. I’ll leave that to the fancy-pants French pastry chefs. The bottom line is, the more you fold it, the more flaky layers it will have. I usually repeat the folding process for about 6-8 times. At this stage the pastry is almost ready: after the last folding you have to flatten it until quite thin, about 2-3 millimeters. Put it back in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. In the meantime preheat the oven at 200C. Take the dough out when the oven reaches the temperature and sprinkle some caster sugar on it. Cook until the surface is golden brown. Take the millefoglie pastry out and leave to cool down at room temperature. 

Now prepare the chantilly cream blending the soymilk with cacao and cornstarch. Bring to boil stirring continuously until thickens. Leave to cool down and when cold mix it with whipped soy cream. Now cut the millefoglie pastry into medium squares and using a sac-a-poche fill each of them. You can make any layer you like. Top with some wildberries, blueberries or any fruit you like.  You can actually fill it with any cream of your favourite, so lets create your favourite version! 

You finally made it! As you can see, if you made it to the end, it wasn’t so hard job. I would say quite fun wasn’t it? Cooking and food prepping is a sort of meditation, so you don’t have to see it as a hard job.

Everytime you cook or make any dessert you are taking time for yourself: put on the best music you like, relax, empty your mind and whatever is the result of the recipe everyone will love it!