Vegan Coconut Vanilla Millefeuille

Combine the flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Add the cold coconut oil cubes and rub in briefly with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs with pea-sized chunks of fat remaining — stop before it turns sandy. Drizzle in the ice-cold water and fold with a palette knife until the dough just holds together. Turn out onto a floured surface, press into a rough rectangle, and wrap tightly in baking parchment.

Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes until very firm before rolling.

On a floured surface, roll the dough into a 40 x 20cm rectangle. Fold the bottom third up and the top third down (a letter fold), rotate 90 degrees, and roll out again to the same size. Repeat this fold-and-roll sequence twice more for a total of three turns.

Wrap the folded dough tightly and refrigerate for a further 60 minutes before rolling out.

Whisk together the coconut cream, oat milk, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, caster sugar, cornflour, cashew butter and salt in a medium saucepan until completely smooth with no lumps of cornflour visible.

Set the saucepan over medium heat and cook, whisking constantly, for 8-10 minutes until the mixture thickens to a glossy custard that holds a ribbon off the whisk and pulls cleanly away from the sides of the pan.

Pour the creme patissiere into a shallow tray, press cling film directly onto the surface, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours until fully set and cold.

Preheat the oven to 200C, or 180°C for a fan oven, or gas mark 6 and line two large baking sheets with baking parchment.

Roll the rested dough out on a floured surface to a 3mm thickness. Cut into twelve rectangles of roughly 12 x 6cm and arrange on the prepared sheets. Prick all over with a fork, dust lightly with caster sugar, then lay a second sheet of parchment on top followed by another baking sheet to weight the pastry down.

Bake for 20 minutes until deep golden and completely crisp throughout, removing the top baking sheet and parchment for the final 5 minutes so the surfaces can caramelise.

Transfer the pastry rectangles to a wire rack and leave to cool completely at room temperature, about 20 minutes.

Beat the chilled creme patissiere vigorously with a spatula or hand mixer until smooth and pipeable, then transfer to a piping bag fitted with a 1cm round or star nozzle.

For the glace icing, mix the sifted icing sugar with cold water a tablespoon at a time until a thick, spreadable icing forms. Stir one tablespoon of the icing with the cocoa powder in a separate bowl to make a dark paste, and load it into a small piping bag with a tiny corner snipped off.

Spread the white glace icing over the top face of four pastry rectangles. Immediately pipe thin parallel lines of the cocoa icing across the width, then drag a cocktail stick alternately up and down through the lines to create the classic feathered pattern. Leave to set for 10 minutes at room temperature.

To assemble each millefeuille, pipe generous rosettes of creme patissiere over one plain pastry rectangle, top with a second plain rectangle, pipe another layer of creme, and crown with a feathered-iced rectangle. Serve immediately, or refrigerate for up to 1 hour before serving.