Mille Feuille Air Pockets?

[richichi]

Hey folks, I have been put in charge of the mille feuille at work and just did my first batch today. I was wondering if somebody could help me out though. When I sliced it into wedges for sale some of the wedges had large air bubbles where the cream should have been. How do I go about preventing this on my next batch?

 

I thought I wouldn't have an issue, the custard half turned out fine and I figured the piped half should have as well since I did the same thing there.I pipped the cream in, leveled it with with an offset and then added my top sheet. I pressed the top sheet down slightly upon adding it in hopes to push any air out, could this have possibly worked in the opposite way and caused air to rush in once the pressure was removed?

[AlaMoi]

puff pastry has a bubble-mind of it's own.  where, why and how 'gosh biggie overgrown bubbles' happen is still a mystery to me.

 

did you make the puff pastry sheet or is it commercial?  (the only difference being if you made it you can speak to how it was made and handled...)

 

the only way I can imagine 'squeezing' the air out could be un-helpful is resulting in the bottom of the sheet to get 'wet' / heavier - so when the puff bit happens the sheet pushed more down than up, or the sheet 'collapsed' before baking.

 

piping in the whipped cream and leveling should produce a fairly uniform & dense layer - unless in the leveling bit you 'covered up / skimmed over' some voids - unlikely but you were there, I wasn't....

[richichi]

We make the sheets in large batches and then cut out perfectly rectangular wedges from those strips, cover the bottom with custard, then a middle sheet, whipped cream, top sheet, fondant, chocolate and then make the design with a knife.

 

The puff itself was fine but there were some cuts where there were noticable air pockets where there should have been whipped cream. Which is weird because I outline the sheet with whipped cream, then fill in that outline, and then on top I put another rectangle and smooth it in everywhere. The top layer that went on though had some cracks in it, could this have been the cause or at least part to blame?

[AlaMoi]

you'll need a macro lense for some good pix - but....

 

top layer had cracks - uhmmm, this is not good in a sheet of puff pastry.

either the consistency was off, or it dried out.  making billions and billions, the 'dried out at the end' makes a bit more sense.

 

look at the bubble and the layers.  if there's a big bubble with thin layers all around - that's a mystery bubble.  why did such a big bubble form there and not so much everywhere else.  I can't answer that - my solution is to eat the evidence and pretend it never happened.

 

a "bubble blow out" - if there is a thin skin/layer completely around the bubble but a hole at the bottom (in this case) the "bubble burst" theory is in play.

 

the problem in my experience is a puff pastry bubble does not have the kind of "mini-explosive" force to displace a (whipped) cream layer.

 

which leads me back to the 'whip cream had a void' theory.

[Lisa Shock]

Did you dock the pastry before baking?

 

It does sound a lot more like the cream had a void, though.

[richichi]

Did you dock the pastry before baking?

 

It does sound a lot more like the cream had a void, though.

 

It was docked pretty heavily. After having done it a couple more times I think I just ended up skimming over the cream in a couple of sections. Had some really picture perfect ones last week that I was thrilled with.

[jmacnaughtan]

I know this is a little late, but might be handy for future reference.

 

The most reliable way I've found to do millefeuilles are to press the puff pastry between two heavy sheet pans (lined top and bottom with paper) and bake like that.  You'll get perfectly even, flat pastry and the metal will help give it good colour.

 

For the cream, there's a piping nozzle that works really well- the end is sort of letter-box shaped and it lets you do very even layers incredibly quickly.  It looks like this one, but flat on both edges: http://www.sibo-sibon.com/douilles-poches-a-douille/1244-douille-wilton-789.html.

 

Hope this helps.

[richichi]

Oh I do appreciate those tips for sure. Everything has been coming out looking really nice since the initial issue but I have always found I take a really long time to get it built up and ready to divide up. I will definitely look into that piping tip!