I do not have the recipe that Grandma used anymore. I remember that grandma spent a whole afternoon making this cake that she usually did for birthdays, especially the one of my mother who loves it.
It was of absolute goodness and one of the most vivid memories among her relatives. The version I report is very similar to the “original.”

Millefoglie (Thousand leaves)

  • Preparation time: 90 minutes
  • Ingredients for a cake with a diameter of 20 cm or 7 7/8 inch
  • Difficulty: Difficult recipe

  • Ingredients
  • 1 kg gr or 2 lbs. 3 oz of puff pastry
  • For the cream:
  • 750 ml or 3 cups of whole milk
  • 225 g or 1 cup of sugar
  • 9 egg yolks
  • 60 gr or ½ cup of flour
  • 1 lemon peel
  • For decoration:
  • Ground-toasted hazelnuts to taste
  • Icing sugar to taste
  1. Instructions
  2. Roll out the pastry with a rolling pin to a thickness of 2.5 mm or 0 3⁄32inch. For this recipe, you willspread the puff pastry across two sheets of about 30 cm x 40 cm or 11 13⁄16 inch x 15 3⁄4inch.
  3. With a fork, make lots of little holes on both sides of the sheets.
  4. Put the doughon a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Place another sheet of parchment paper and a baking pan on the pastry sheet to act as a weight.
  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 200 °C or 400 °F for ten minutes.
  6. Remove from oven and remove the pan above and put back in the oven. Cook for another ten minutes.
  7. Repeat the operation for the second sheet.
  8. Meanwhile, prepare the cream. Boil the milk with lemon peel. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar then add the flour. Add the milk with the lemon peel and cook over a gentle heat until the cream thickens, continuing to turn constantly.
  9. Let it cool quickly inside a basin full of ice. Insert the cream in a sac a poche.
  10. Cut out the cooked sheet of the desired size into 3 discs.
  11. Put the cream on the first disk with the sac a poche. Place the second disc on top of which another cream will be poured over. Place the last disc. Also, fill the edges with custard and top with the toasted hazelnuts and the leftovers of the puff pastry minced finely. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.

Tips to ensure the success of the dish:

  • It is better to cook the dough and cut it later because the edges usually grow a lot and therefore should be eliminated and used as a decoration on the edges of the cake.
  • The custard should be cooled quickly to avoid bacterial growth. If you cannotuse an ice cube, you must put the contact cellophane on the cream to avoid the formation of a “skin” in the cooling phase.

 Granny Irene and Grandpa Aldo