Feuilletine, Crunchy Golden Leaves

A perfect summer treat with feuilletine

Throughout culinary history many great ideas came to be either by accident or by the need to save on resources. These accidents have enriched world cuisines with recipes and ingredients that we now take for granted. 

Feuilletine is one of these delicious "accidents". Feuilletine is derived from feuille which is the french word for paper.  These feuilletine were meant to be paper thin crepes known as crepes dentelles or gavottes, but some would break and would be tossed away. As nothing should be thrown in the kitchen, these crepes morphed into baked crispy sweets that can be incorporated in many desserts for added sweetness and crunch. 

I needed these golden sweet sheets for an entremet I wanted to make, however, feuilletines are hard to find. Instead of ordering them online, which is always a possibility, I decided to make them at home. Home cooking and baking always cheers me up, so it wasn't a hassle to take the decision to make the feuilletines at home but rather a challenge I was willing to take. Now finding a good recipe was the actual challenge, but where there's a will there's a way. 


So here's the recipe and what you need to do. 

First, you will need: 

• 127 g butter
• 113 g brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 170 g molasses
• You can add many flavoring agents, it's really up to taste, I added orange zest, vanilla, and cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 368 g siflted flour
• 59 ml of milk.

The mixture before adding the egg

The method:

Start by creaming the butter, sugar, baking soda, orange zest, vanilla and cinnamon. When the mix is fluffy and light stop mixing and add the molasses. Incorporate the molasses by mixing for a minute or so, then add the egg and mix until fully incorporated. 
Scrap down the batter that is sticking on the sides then beat again on low speed. Add all the flour, then the milk. Mix untill well combined

The texture of the mixture when all ingredients are combined

At this stage, you will need to spread the mixture in several batches (6 or 7) on silicon mats. You can't manage with a parchment paper alone. This is the tricky part of this recipe. You need to spread the mix as thinly as possible, which is not always easy. I had some difficulty with my old silicon mat, it didn't allow me to reach the thinness I desired, but the result was perfectly acceptable.Aim to have a translucent layer which you will bake in a preheated oven (180C) for no more than 8 minutes. 

The tricky part of spreading the batter as thin as possible

Wait for the feuilletine to cool before you crumble them. You can control the size of the bits and you can even use a paper stencil to make any shape you want.

Now the feuilletine is ready to be used. They add excellent taste and texture to ice creams, layered yogurts, or used with truffles for a crunchier filling or topping. The list is endless, just use your imagination!

Waiting for your imagination

Here's how I used the feuilletine. I made a layered yogurt and fruits, a pretty refreshing dessert. I had some homemade greek yogurt ice cream, so I put a scoop of  ice cream then chunks of mango and strawberries followed by feuilletine and repeated this process until the cup was full. I topped the cup with some whipped cream and maple syrup. A perfect summer treat.