French Pâtissier's Secret Ingredient - 3 Recipes Using Feuilletine
by Nicola Lando
Usually only seen in professional pastry kitchens, feuilletine is the secret weapon of many a French pâtissier. Feuilletine's full name is pailleté feuilletine, meaning leaf-like flakes, an apt name for these brittle crispy flakes with caramelized, praline flavours.
Feuilletine is made from the same batter as crêpes dentelles, extremely thin layers of biscuit rolled up into wide cigar-like shapes. Feuilletine flakes have a light, crispy texture which works wonders in pâtisserie. In particular, feuilletine has an affinity with chocolate since the flakes can be coated in chocolate without going soggy. This means they can retain their texture adding contrast to layered cakes known as 'entremets.'
Here are our top three feuilletine recipes
Louis XV Chocolate Mousse Dessert
A classic use for feuilletine is in the iconic signature dish of Alain Ducasse’s three-star Michelin restaurant in Monte-Carlo, the Louis XV. A layer of feuilletine mixed with praline is spread on top of a hazelnut dacquois to form a base with an irresistible chewy crunch.
Feuilletine & Salted Caramel Macarons
Beyond its classic uses, feuilletine adds decorative interest to biscuits, in particular macarons. In our macaron recipe we sprinkle the feuilletine over the macaron shells just before baking. The caramelized, praline flavours work well with a salted caramel and vanilla buttercream filling.
Hazelnut & Feuilletine Christmas Yule Log
Last but not least, feuilletine adds an irresistible crunch to our chocolate and hazelnut yule log. In this recipe we make a praline/feuilletine layer which is spread onto a chocolate genoise sponge and rolled up with a hazelnut buttercream. The rich nuttiness of our hazelnut paste really complements the caramelized flavours of feuilletine.
For more tips about how to master French patisserie, check out this article explaining the 5 common problems when making macarons & how to solve them!
About the author
Nicola Lando is the co-founder and CEO of Sous Chef, where she has spent more than a decade sourcing, tasting and selecting specialist ingredients, cookware and tableware from producers around the world.
She trained at Leiths and later completed a stage at a Michelin-starred London restaurant, experiences that helped shape Sous Chef’s original mission: to give home cooks access to the same exceptional ingredients used by professional chefs.
Today, Nicola leads much of Sous Chef’s product sourcing and ingredient selection, working directly with producers and travelling internationally to food fairs, farms, mills and manufacturers. She tastes thousands of products each year and has built deep expertise across storecupboard ingredients, olive oil, condiments, spices, preserved foods and specialist cooking ingredients.
She holds an olive oil sommelier certification from ESAO in Spain, Imperial Executive Education’s Certificate in Nutrition for Health: Evidence-Based Tools and Strategies certificate; as well as studying Food Safety and Control at University of Greenwich.
Nicola also writes recipes and ingredient guides for Sous Chef, combining practical cooking experience with first-hand knowledge from producers, suppliers and specialist food makers. Her work focuses on helping cooks understand how to choose better ingredients, use them well, and get more flavour from their cooking.
