Millefoglie with pistachio butter and Chantilly cream

• By Mark Camilleri

For 6 people, you will need:

300g of puff pastry, 500ml of milk, a quarter of a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of vanilla essence, the yolks of three eggs, 30g of 00 flour, 500ml of double cream, one cupful of pistachios (shelled), one cupful of almonds, a pinch of salt, 50g of dark chocolate (melted), two tablespoonfuls of sliced almonds, one tablespoonful of icing sugar.

Pistachio butter: Blanch the pistachios and almonds (not the sliced almonds) in boiling water for two minutes, then remove them from the water and peel them. Before peeling, taste one of each to ensure that they have softened. If not, blanch them again. Make a puree of these nuts and half a cupful of hot water, using a blender. Add the water gradually as you don’t want the mixture to be too thin. Now add three-quarters of a cupful of sugar, gradually, tasting as you do so to ensure that it is not too sweet. If it is too sweet for your taste, don’t add all the sugar. Chantilly cream: Pour the milk into a pan, adding a pinch of salt and a dash of vanilla essence. Bring it slowly to the boil. Whisk the eggs with the flour, 70g of sugar and a tablespoonful of the boiling milk. Put this mixture into the pan of milk and whisk them together, making sure that no lumps form. Bring the pan back to the boil over a moderate heat, stirring it until it thickens. Now pour it into a bowl, leave it to cool, and then put it in the fridge for at least an hour. Beat the double cream into soft peaks, and carefully fold them into the chilled mixture. Pastry: Roll out the puff pastry until it is thin. Use it to cover the base of a baking-sheet, and prick it all over with a fork. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180C, and bake the pastry for about 15 minutes or until it is puffed and golden. Dust it with icing sugar and bake it for another five minutes. Leave it to cool still on the baking-sheet. Then cut it into 18 even-sized squares and break up the rest. Putting it all together: Place a generous tablespoonful of Chantilly cream on the centre of each serving-plate. Top this with a square of pastry, and repeat the layers another two times. Scatter some broken pieces over the top and sift icing sugar over it. Drizzle pistachio butter and melted chocolate around the pasty, and scatter it with almonds. Serve this dessert immediately.