Plaza Athénée, Angelo Musa · Since 2016
The mille-feuille, Musa style
Angelo Musa’s mille-feuille at the Plaza Athénée is the technician’s version of the classic: three sheets of inverted puff caramelised to glass, a vanilla cream with real pods, and a knife that cuts it clean.
Taste profile
Pair it with
A black tea from Ceylon, or a coffee.
The mille-feuille is the test of a French pastry kitchen: puff pastry that shatters, a cream that holds, a cut that does not crush. Musa, a world champion and Meilleur Ouvrier de France, builds his with inverted puff, butter outside the dough, baked between trays and dusted with sugar that caramelises into a glass sheet, and a light vanilla cream with the seeds of Tahitian and Madagascan pods.
It is served at La Galerie and cut in front of the guest, which is the point: a mille-feuille that has waited an hour is another dessert.
The home version · serves 6
Ingredients
- 500 g all-butter puff pastry
- Icing sugar for caramelising
- 500 ml whole milk
- 1 vanilla pod
- 5 egg yolks
- 100 g sugar
- 40 g cornflour
- 150 ml whipping cream
Method
- Roll the puff thinly, prick, bake between two trays at 190 °C for 25 minutes so it stays flat.
- Dust with icing sugar and return to a 240 °C oven for 2 minutes until the sugar glazes.
- Make a crème pâtissière with milk, vanilla, yolks, sugar and cornflour; cool, then fold in whipped cream.
- Cut the puff into three equal rectangles, pipe cream between the layers.
- Chill 30 minutes and cut with a serrated knife just before serving.
Where to taste it
