Napoleon cake - classic recipe

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

• Category:

  dessert

• Cooking time:

  1, 5-2 hours

Ingredients

• water
• margarine
• egg
• flour
• salt
• milk
• sugar
• egg
• flour
• starch
• vanilla sugar

Napoleon cake is a classic dessert of our childhood. There is no person who lived in the Soviet Union who has never tasted this delicacy. Until now, many housewives, following established family traditions, bake it for any occasion and enjoy tea with friends and relatives.

Today there are several options for making a Napoleon cake at home according to a classic recipe, which, thanks to step-by-step photos, always turn out great. And all because no store-bought cake can be compared with a homemade counterpart.

We suggest trying to bake this delicacy on your own, and remember the old, happy times when our beloved grandmothers and mothers ruled the kitchen.

Napoleon cake - classic recipe

There are several versions of the first appearance of this dessert on Russian tables, the most plausible of them has taken root in the minds of Soviet citizens so strongly that it is already considered the only true one. There is an opinion that for the first time the cake was prepared for the 100th anniversary of Napoleon's expulsion from our country.

Then the confectioners made an unusual flaky delicacy in the shape of a triangle, symbolizing the famous hat of the French emperor. The dessert was simple to perform and consisted of dough cakes and butter cream.

Today, housewives can afford to choose from a wide variety of recipes and build their own individual delicacy for a family celebration. But still, each of the newly invented Napoleon cake options at home will be based on the classic recipe, which we present to you with step-by-step photos.

Cake ingredients:

• 0, 5 tbsp. cold water;
• 1 egg;
• 1 pack of creamy margarine;
• 4 tbsp. flour;
• 0.5 tsp salt.

Ingredients for the custard:

• 1 liter of milk;
• 1 tbsp. granulated sugar;
• 1 egg yolk;
• 4 tbsp. l. flour;
• 2 tbsp. l. starch;
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar.

Ingredients for Butter Cream:

• 1 pack of butter;
• 300 g icing sugar;
• vanilla extract.

Recipe:

• The making of the Napoleon cake according to the classic recipe begins with dough. We take a spacious container and pour the required amount of cold, boiled water into it. We break the egg there and salt. Shake the contents with a whisk until the ingredients are fully combined.
• Melt the creamy margarine on the stove in a saucepan or in the microwave. It is important not to let it boil. Add to a bowl of water and whisk thoroughly again.

• Pour 3 cups of flour into a bowl and begin to knead. We do this first with a spatula, and then on the table, sprinkled with the remaining glass of flour, pour out a lump of dough and continue to knead.
• Divide the completely kneaded dough into 6 parts, wrap each with plastic, safe wrap and hide in the freezer for 10 minutes.

• After the required amount of time has passed, we take out our blanks and roll them out one by one with a rolling pin. To prevent the dough from sticking to the table, sprinkle it with flour.
• We light the oven at 200 ° C.
• We begin to form the cakes. We take one rolled out layer of dough, place a round baking dish or a saucepan lid on top, and carefully cut it in a circle with a knife. We repeat this work 5 more times.

We take a baking sheet, not oiled, put one cake on it and send it to a preheated oven for 7 minutes. The dough should be browned. We also bake the remaining cakes

Prepare the cream according to one of the recipes below. We coat them abundantly with each of the five cakes and lay them one on top of the other. The last sixth - grind in a blender to a crumb consistency and roll the cake on all sides

Butter cream recipe:

1. We send diced, soft butter into a deep container.
2. We also send powdered sugar and a little vanilla there.
3. Turn on the mixer and beat the cream until smooth at high speed.
4. The cream should be fluffy and airy. You can add different fillings to it to get new flavors. For example, chocolate butter cream, raspberry or citrus will look unusual in Napoleon cake.

Custard recipe:

• Pour milk into a saucepan or stewpan and put it on low heat to bring it to a boil.
• Meanwhile, separate the yolk from the egg and send it to a bowl. Add a glass of sugar there. We grind everything with a tablespoon until the sugar crystals dissolve and the mass becomes white.

• Add starch and sifted flour to the cream. We knead everything thoroughly.
• Add warmed milk to the cream in a thin stream, about 2 ladles. Beat constantly with a whisk so that lumps do not have time to form. Add vanilla sugar.
• When the milk boils, pour the mixture from a bowl into it, whisking constantly with a whisk so that the cream does not stick to the bottom and walls. When the first bubbles appear, remove from heat and remove to cool.

• When the cream is warm, stir in the softened butter.
• The custard turns out to be delicate, silky and perfectly complements the dry, crumbly structure of the cakes.

The original recipe for this cake should have a lot of thin cakes, so if you want, you can increase the number of layers.

Freshly prepared Napoleon cake according to the classic recipe with step-by-step photos will remind you and your guests of the taste of childhood. Before drinking tea, we recommend that you put the dessert in the refrigerator so that it is properly saturated with cream. You can decorate it with fresh currants or raspberries, chocolate chips or mint leaves.

Napoleon cake with condensed milk

Another popular recipe for Napoleon cake at home, which is also called classic, using boiled condensed milk. You can easily build this work of culinary art yourself thanks to our step-by-step recipe with a photo. When preparing dessert, it is necessary to take into account that additional time will be required to impregnate the cakes.

That is why we recommend planning tea drinking not earlier than the next day, then everything will have time to get saturated with moisture and soften.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 150 ml of cold water;
• 1 egg;
• 1 pinch of salt;
• 400 g butter;
• 600 g flour;
• 1 tbsp. l. 9% vinegar.

Ingredients for the cream:

• 1 can of boiled condensed milk;
• 350 ml of milk;
• 500 g 33% cream;
• 1 egg;
• 120 g sugar;
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar
• 1 tbsp. l. potato starch.

Recipe:

In a small container, lightly shake the egg and salt

• Mix water and vinegar separately in a glass.
• Combine the egg with water, mix thoroughly until smooth and put in the refrigerator.

We take out the butter from the freezer and chop it into cubes. We put it in a deep bowl. Sift 550 g of flour there

We rub the mass with our hands, carefully passing it between the fingers. It is important to work quickly so that the oil does not warm up in your hands. The mass should turn into small crumbs

• We make a hole in the center of the oil crumb. Pour in a thin stream of water with an egg, which was waiting in the refrigerator for its time. Mix with a spatula.
• We put the kitchen tools aside and quickly collect the dough in a lump with our hands, kneading slightly. The mass should not stick to your hands, but it does not need to become smooth either. It is impossible to knead the dough for a long time, so as not to lose the layering effect.

Divide the dough into 10 pieces and roll them into balls. We wrap it in polyethylene and send it to the refrigerator for 2 hours

When the koloboks have cooled down well, we proceed to the formation of cakes. Cut off a piece of parchment and roll out a circle of dough on it, no more than 2 mm thick. Flour can be used if necessary to prevent sticking to hands and rolling pin. Using a flat plate, cut out a circle

We pierce the cake in several places with a fork so that it does not rise. We put it together with the parchment on a baking sheet, send it to the oven, preheated to 220 ° C. Bake for 7 minutes, until the cake is browned. We do the same work with the remaining koloboks. We put the finished cakes in a pile. We do not throw out the dough trimmings, and also bake them - they will come in handy later

• While the cakes are cooking and cooling down, prepare the cream. Bring the milk to a boil. Separately in a saucepan, grind the egg, starch, granulated sugar and vanilla sugar. We make sure that all the lumps disappear.
• Pour half of the hot milk into a saucepan in a thin stream and actively shake the mass with a whisk.
• Pour the contents of the saucepan over the remaining milk and reduce the heat to low. We continue to mix with a whisk, collecting the adhering pieces from the walls.

• We are at the stove all the time until the cream starts bubbling. Turn off the heating and remove the pan from the stove. We leave aside until it cools completely.
• Add boiled condensed milk, mix until a smooth, light caramel mass is formed.

In a separate container, beat the chilled cream until thick

Stir in our cream in small portions. As a result, we get a lush mass

We collect Napoleon cake at home. Put one cake on a flat dish, thickly coat it with cooked and chilled cream. Put another cake on top and repeat the procedure until the ingredients are completely used. Cover the sides of the cake with the remaining cream

Grind the cuttings in a blender and sprinkle them over the entire surface of the dessert. We put it in the refrigerator overnight so that Napoleon has time to soak. The longer he waits in the wings, the more tender and tasty the delicacy will turn out.

You can decorate the Napoleon cake, prepared according to the classic recipe with the addition of boiled condensed milk at home, for every taste. Someone uses berries, while others leave the dessert as it is, without any decor.

Tips from experienced pastry chefs

To get a truly delicious dessert that will delight you with its tenderness, you can use the secrets of specialists:

1. Choose butter for the dough, not margarine.
2. To prevent the dough from sticking to your hands, do not hesitate to add flour to it, but only in small portions.
3. In order not to accidentally break the cakes, do not press on them with a spatula when applying the cream.

4. To obtain an even more tender and juicy consistency, insist the finished cake in the refrigerator for at least a day.

   

It is believed that baking Napoleon cake yourself in a simple kitchen with the usual set of tools is quite difficult. It is rather laborious, but even a beginner can cope with the task.