Custard cream mille feuille (Bécsi krémes)

Ingredients:

• 500g puff pastry (frozen is good too)
• to roll the pastry: wheat flour
• for glazing:150g Kecskeméti sour cherry jam 
• for the icing: 120g powdered sugar, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 egg white, 60g dark chocolate
• for the filling: 4 eggs + 1 egg yolk, 120g granulated sugar, 250ml cooking cream, 500ml milk, 100g corn starch, 1 vanilla pod (a more economical alternative: 1 sachet of vanilla sugar)

1. Let the pastry reach room temperature – if using frozen pastry – and roll it into two 21x42cm sheets (that is, a little larger, because it shrinks while baking). If you have no baking tray this size even on its underside, a perfect alternative is wrapping the oven grill in two layers of aluminium foil, sprinkling a little water on it and then laying both pastry sheets on top. Prick the pastry all over with a fork and then bake it for about 15 minutes in a pre-heated oven at high heat (220 °C; or 200 °C in a fan-assisted oven). 

2. Cut a 14cm wide strip off the length of each sheet with a serrated blade, and set them aside. So now you must have 2 14x42cm sheets and 2 7x42 strips. Spread sour cherry jam on the 14x42 cm sheets and them leave them to dry a little. 

3. For the glazing: keep mixing the powdered sugar with lemon juice and the egg whites for 5-6 minutes, during which the sugar dissolves and you end up with a thick mass. Spread it evenly on the nicer-looking sheet. Pour some molten chocolate in thin lengthwise streaks on top, zigzag it with a toothpick – like on top of the Esterházy cake – and then leave it to harden a little.

4. For the cream: whisk the egg whites hard and add half of the sugar before finished. Bring the cream to a boil with 300ml milk. Mix the remaining 200ml milk with the remaining sugar, the egg yolks, the starch and the seeds scraped off the inside of the vanilla pod, keep stirring it until smooth. Add to the hot milk and cream mixture and cook, stirring, until thick. Pull the pan off the heat and work in the sugary egg white foam.

5. Lay the bare pastry sheet onto a baking tray and distribute half of the lukewarm creamy filling on top. Lay the thin (7x42cm) pastry strips on top and spread the other half of the cream on top. Cut the glazed pastry sheet into 7x7cm pieces with a knife dipped in hot water, slide it on top of the cream and put it all in the fridge for 2-3 hours to grow firm. Cut into pieces before serving along the lines of the pre-cut top layer with a serrated knife dipped in hot water.