A pastry for King’s Day: an orange tompouce (Dutch custard slice) with crisp puff pastry, a thick layer of home-made pastry cream with whipped cream and a smooth orange icing. You make the cream yourself from milk, egg yolks and vanilla, so no packet of custard powder or cream mix is needed. The icing gets its colour from orange juice and a drop of orange food colouring, so it is properly orange rather than the usual pink.
Orange tompouce
Orange tompouce
Method
01
Bake the puff pastry
Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Cut each sheet of puff pastry into 2 rectangles of about 5 by 10 cm (8 pieces), place them on baking paper, prick them with a fork and cover with a second sheet of baking paper and a baking tray. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, remove the top tray and bake for another 3 minutes until golden brown. Leave to cool.
02
Cook the cream
Bring the milk to the boil with the vanilla. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and cornflour in a bowl until smooth. Pour the hot milk in while stirring, return everything to the pan and stir over medium heat until the cream thickens and has boiled for 1 minute.
03
Cool the cream
Stir in the butter, spoon the cream into a bowl, lay cling film directly on the surface and leave to cool, at least 2 hours in the fridge.
04
Fold in the whipped cream
Whisk the cooled cream smooth and carefully fold in the whipped cream. Put the cream into a piping bag.
05
Assemble
Pipe a thick layer of cream onto 4 of the pastry pieces. Place the other 4 pieces on top and press down lightly.
06
Icing
Stir the icing sugar with the orange juice and the colouring into a thick, smooth icing. Spread it quickly over the tops of the tompouces and let it set for 10 minutes.
07
Serve
Keep the tompouces cold until serving. Cut with a serrated knife using a gentle sawing motion.
Tips & notes
The puff pastry sheets are sold frozen and do not need to be made yourself: thaw them for 15 minutes. Orange food colouring is sold with the baking supplies, a gel is the strongest. Without colouring the icing is pale yellow. For a softer colour, use less colouring. Cut tompouces keep for at most 1 day in the fridge; after that the pastry goes soft. The cream is cooked, so there is no raw egg in it. Keep the tompouces chilled.
Chef's tip
Bake the puff pastry between two baking trays so it does not rise too much and stays flat: that makes a tompouce easy to cut. Let the cream cool completely before folding in the whipped cream, otherwise it becomes thin. Make the icing just before finishing and work fast, it sets quickly.
Variations
- Pink: leave out the orange colouring and use a drop of red food colouring and some water instead of orange juice for the classic tompouce.
- With orange: stir the finely grated zest of an orange into the cream.
- Mini: cut the slabs into four pieces for small tompouces on a party buffet.
Contains:
Gluten
Milk
Eggs
