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Mille-feuille

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A mille-feuille pastry that has combed glazing

The Mille-feuille(s) (French 'thousand sheets'), Napoleon (esp. U.S.), vanilla slice, cream slice or custard slice (esp. U.K. and Commonwealth) is a pastry made of several layers of puff pastry alternating with a sweet filling, typically pastry cream, but sometimes whipped cream, or jam. It is usually glazed with icing or fondant in alternating white and brown (chocolate) strips, and combed. The name is also spelled as "millefeuille(s)" and "mille feuille(s)", and is French for "a thousand sheets". There are also savory mille-feuilles, with cheese and spinach or other fillings.

1 Variant names and forms
2 History
3 Origin of the name 'Napoleon'
4 Competitions
5 Popular culture
6 Alternative names
7 See also
8 Sources
9 Notes

Variant names and forms

In Italy, where the pastry is thought to have originated in Naples, it is called mille foglie (again, thousand leaves), and contains similar fillings. A savory Italian version consists of puff pastry filled with spinach, cheese, or pesto among other things. In the UK and the Commonwealth (Quebec excepted), mille-feuille is known as vanilla slice or cream slice, and usually has only a top and bottom pastry layer. The filling is often flavored with chocolate. In Australia, popular icings include vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, and passion fruit. In New Zealand, it is usually called a custard square. A variation popular in England is the Bavarian Slice which has a layer of raspberry or strawberry jam and rippled icing, although there is no evidence that this is a traditional Bavarian dish.

It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article entitled Napoleon cake. ()

The commercially available version available in Australia

In Australia, there are varying forms of this pastry. Balfours, claiming to be Australia's largest bakery, produce their own form of Napoleon Cake which is multi layered and contains icing, pastry, cream, jam and sponge cake. This differs from the more widely known vanilla slice which is composed of icing, pastry and custard. In Sweden as well as in Finland the Napoleonbakelse (Napoleon pastry) is a mille-feuille filled with whipped cream, custard, and jam. The top of the pastry is glazed with icing and currant jelly. The Netherlands and Belgium eat the tompoes or tompouce. Several variations exist in Belgium, but in the Netherlands, it is iconic and the market allows preciously little variation in form, size, ingredients and colour. See the tompouce article.

History

The origin of the mille-feuille is unknown. The Hungarian city of Szeged may have something to do with its origins. Carême (writing at the end of the 18th century) considered it of 'ancient origin'. It was earlier called "gâteau de mille-feuilles" 'cake of a thousand leaves'.

Origin of the name 'Napoleon'

The name appears to come from napolitain, the French adjective for the Italian city of Naples, but altered by association with the name of Emperor Napoleon I of France. There is no evidence to connect the pastry to the emperor himself. In France, a Napoléon is a kind of mille-feuille filled with almond paste.

Competitions

An annual competition for the best vanilla slice baker is the Great Australian Vanilla Slice Triumph held in Ouyen in western Victoria (Australia). Judging criteria include "when tasted, should reveal a custard with a creamy smooth texture and a balance of vanilla taste with a crisp, crunchy pastry topped with a smooth and shiny glaze/fondant". ^[1]

Popular culture

The time-travel card game Early American Chrononauts includes a tongue-in-cheek card called Napoleon's Napoleon which players can symbolically acquire from the year 1815.
On the cd label for the 1998 Sonic Youth album A Thousand Leaves the phrase "mille feuille" is crossed out and "a thousand leaves" is written under it.
Milfeulle Sakuraba is a character in the anime Galaxy Angel. She is highly skilled in cooking, but especially enjoys making pastries and other desserts.
Mille feuille is also the name of a character in the anime/manga Sorcerer Hunters (also known as Bakuretsu Hunters). He is flamboyant and androgynous but beneath his playful exterior is a very powerful knight with an extensive knowledge of magic. He acts as a supervisor of sorts for the main characters (who are also named after desserts like glace, mocha, tira misu, chocolate, etc.).
In the Woody Allen film Love and Death, Napoleon berated his chefs for a pastry attempt at a Napoleon (they'd included raisins, among other things). Napoleon declared himself in competition with Wellington, who was "inventing" Beef Wellington.

Alternative names

Names for the Napoleon pastry in other languages:

In Arabic "ميل فى" [mīlfī]
In Dutch "tompoes", (or En:Tompouce) and in Belgium, near the French-Dutch language boundary also "mille-feuille" pronounced as [me'fəj].
In English (Australia) "Vanilla slice"
In English (U.K.) "Vanilla slice" or "Cream slice"
In English (U.S.) "Napoleon"
In Estonian "Napoleoni kook" or "napoleonikook" ('Napoleon's cake')
In French "Mille-feuille" ('Thousand sheets')^[2]
In German "Cremeschnitte" ('cream slice'); the dough is "Blätterteig" ('sheet dough'); also "Napoleonschnitte"
In Hebrew "קרם שניט" [kremʃnitte]
In Hungarian "Francia krémes"
In Japanese "ミルフィーユ" [mirɯfījɯ]
In Norwegian "Napoléon's kake" ('Napoleon's cake')
In Polish "Napoleonka"
In Portuguese "Mil-folhas" ('Thousand-sheets')
In Russian "Наполеон" ('Napoleon').
In Spanish "Milhojas"
In Swedish "Napoleonbakelse" ('Napoleon pastry')
In Turkish "Milföy"