The napoleon with a lower-case "n" is the name of a cake I absolutely love. Napoleon cake was indeed named after the French Emperor, but probably not for reasons he would have liked. Napoleon (the cake) found it's place on Russians dinner table in the 19th century after they beat the French army in 1812. This cake was baked so many times during the festivities and seduced the Russians in a way many of them now believe this cake to be part of their national culinary heritage, even though it wasn't really even invented by them.. But who cares right? As long as it tastes as heavenly as it does. The cake consists of many layers and oh so much custard. What's there not to love?
I have made few changes to the "original" napoleon and I'm not saying mine is better than the original, it's just the way I prefer it and who knows, maybe so do you!
napoleon cake
You will need:
For the dough:
600g flour
250ml cold water
1 egg
wee bit of salt
250g cold butter
either 1tps of 38% vinegar
or 3tps of 4.5% vinegar
For the cream:
1l milk
200g sugar
4 eggs
1 vanilla pod or
wee bit of vanilla extract
60g flour
Jam (optional)
If you'd like to make a smaller size cake, just use half the amount of ingredients & a smaller cake tin!
Make the dough. Mix cold butter & flour together. Add water & vinegar, mix them in. Add salt & egg and again, mix them in. Once the dough has been mixed, wrap it with cling film and leave it in the fridge for about an hour.
Make the cream. Heat 750ml milk & 100g sugar to boil. Be careful not to burn it or over boil it. While the milk is heating up, mix the eggs with the rest of the sugar. Add flour and the rest of the milk. Mix well and make sure you don't have flour chunks in it. If you do and you don't seem to get rid of them, don't worry, we'll get rid of them later!
Lower the temperature on your stove to medium and take the pot off the hear for a moment. Stir the egg mixture slowly into the hot milk and keep mixing at the same time. Put the pot back on the stove and keep mixing. Make sure the mixture isn't boiling. Keep stirring the mixture for about 5 minutes, until it thickens up. Pour it into another clean bowl and cover with cling film. If you have flour chunks in it, pour the liquid through a sieve. Leave the cream to rest & cool.
Take out your dough and split into 6 balls. Sprinkle some flour on to your worktop & with the help of your hand and a rolling pin, roll the dough balls into 6 individual flat, thin sheets. Use your cake tin to measure them. Cut off the extra dough, put it aside, make sure to cut the sheets bigger than your cake tin as the dough will change size while cooking. Use the leftovers to make a 7th ball and make another sheet out of it. Lay them on baking paper, pierce the sheets all over with a fork & bake them in a 250 °C oven for around 5 minutes or until they look slightly browner.
Once out of the oven, use your cake tin again to cut them into correct size. Again, keep the leftovers!
Prepare your cake tin by covering it with baking paper and start putting your cake together. 1 layer of the baked dough, add cream and continue until you have all your layers used up. The top of the cake should be a layer of cream. If you'd like to use jam in your cake, add that to the middle layers. I like to use blackcurrant or raspberry jam, nothing super sweet! Use the leftover cooked batter to smash it in your palm and sprinkle it all over your top custard layer. The cake is best served next day, once all the cream has melted into the dough! I know it seems like a lot of work but I promise you, it is so worth it!
Enjoy!
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