My birthday is one day before my mother's. Every year I make her cake on my birthday. This year I really thought hard to find the cake that would make her really happy. She 3 sweet passion: mille-feuille, brown (in all its forms) especially the frosting with vanilla lightning. I saw how easily I could combine chestnut and mille feuille but I was not sure I'd be able to make a nice frosting because I wanted it to be perfect! I easily made my first installation but the icing did not look like what I had in mind, I therefore removed to start over and achieve a realization that I'm rather proud: the perfect mille-feuille icing ! In addition to being beautiful the cake was more delicious than I expected!

Mille-feuille with chestnut cream and marron glacé

Prep: 1h30
Cooking: 25mins
Cooling: 12hr

Serves 6 people

- 4 small square puff pastry (Type Croustipâte)
- 1 egg yolk + 1 tablespoon milk
- 200g of chestnut cream with vanilla
- 25cl cream whole + 2 tbsp cream (or sour cream)
- 80gr broken glazed chestnuts + some candied chestnuts whole for decoration
- 6 gelatin

Icing:
- 120gr icing sugar
- 1/2 egg white
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder (Optional for lines)

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4.

Using a rolling pin, spread more thinly 4 puff pastry to enlarge and refine. Make them all the same size using a square cut from a sheet as a guide. Place pastries on a sheet of parchment paper and prick with a fork. Beat an egg yolk and a tablespoon of milk and brush this mixture on the pastries with a paintbrush.

Cook the pastries in pairs: Place pastries on their two parchment papers on the baking tray. Bake at 180 degrees for 10-12mn (they should be golden). If while cooking the pasta began to swell, place over a sheet of parchment paper and a grid. Then repeat the operation with the following two pastries and set aside the cooked ones.

Pour 25 cl of cream in a bowl and place in freezer 15 minutes with the whisk of the mixer to whip it up more easily.

Put the gelatine to soak in cold water for a few minutes then drain.

Heat 2 tablespoons of sour cream in a saucepan over low heat. When hot, add the squeezed gelatine leaves. Stir until gelatin is completely melted.

Then mount the whipped cream in very strong (it may take time) and add at the end gelatin-cream mixture cool a little.

In another bowl, add cream of chestnuts and mix with 3 large tablespoons of whipped cream.

Mix the marron glacé shreds with the rest of whipped cream.

Making the mille-feuille: Arrange three of the cooked pastries in front of you. Spread chestnut purée about 1cm thick on two of them and whipped cream and marron glacé shreds to a thickness of 2.5 cm on the other.

Gently place the pastry with the whipped cream on top of one with chestnuts and then another one with chestnut cream on top. Set aside.

Icing: Prepare the glaze by mixing 120g icing sugar, 1/2 egg white and 1 tablespoon lemon juice (predict double if like me you do it twice).

Optional: Set aside two tablespoons of this mixture and add 2 teaspoons of chocolate powder to make the lines of the pattern (add a few drops of lemon juice if it's too pasty).

With a spoon spread the white icing on the last remaining pastry, on a wooden board. Do not be afraid to go beyond and letting the icing on the sides.

Optional (difficult): Put the chocolate icing in a syringe (or in a small cone of wax paper made with a piece of tape). Using the syringe, draw with the chocolate icing parallel lines spaced 1, 5cm on the white icing. Using the tip of a knife, draw perpendicular lines of chocolate parallel grooves spaced 3cm to draw the lines of chocolate in one direction and then the same in the opposite direction between each groove marked the first time. Clean the knife between each line drawing.

Allow the icing to dry for 2 hours. Cut what went over the edges to loosen the pastry from the wooden board. Gently place it on top of the cake.

Let the mille feuille cool overnight. Garnish with marron glacé just before serving.

If the plot lines of chocolate seems too complicated, be content with the simple white icing.

The millefeuille is even better the following days.