Yann Couvreur · Since 2016
The mille-feuille à la minute
Yann Couvreur builds his mille-feuille in front of the customer: sheets of caramelised puff pulled from a tin, a Madagascar vanilla cream piped between them, and a serving that must be eaten within minutes.
Taste profile
Pair it with
A short espresso at the counter.
Couvreur’s idea was simple: a mille-feuille that never waits. The puff is baked in sheets through the day and kept crisp in tins; when you order, the counter pipes the vanilla cream between three layers and hands it over with a warning. The result is the crispest mille-feuille in Paris and the reason for the Saturday queue on the avenue Parmentier.
He makes seasonal versions, praline, chocolate, fruit, but the vanilla is the one the neighbourhood comes for.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- 500 g all-butter puff pastry
- Icing sugar
- 400 ml whole milk
- 1 Madagascar vanilla pod
- 4 egg yolks
- 80 g sugar
- 35 g cornflour
- 100 g butter, soft
Method
- Bake the puff flat between trays at 190 °C for 25 minutes, glaze with icing sugar at 240 °C for 2 minutes, cut into equal rectangles and keep in an airtight tin.
- Make a crème pâtissière, cool it to lukewarm and beat in the soft butter for a crème mousseline.
- Keep the cream in a piping bag in the fridge.
- At the moment of serving, pipe cream on one sheet, top with a second, pipe again, top with the third.
- Eat within five minutes; this is the whole point.
Where to taste it
