Pie "Napoleon" classic - cooking features, recipes and reviews

Pie "Napoleon" is notable for its multi-layered, and therefore it’s taste depends on the quality of the dough. The thinner and more tender the cakes, the better they are saturated with cream and the more likely they are to get an airy and delicious dessert.

Legend of Origin

There are several legends regarding how the Napoleon pie was born. The most famous today says that Russian cooks prepared a specific cake for the celebrations on the occasion of the escape of General Bonaparte from the Russian Empire. The pastries were created in a triangular shape, which was an analogue of Napoleon's headdress, and sugar crumbs, which served as decoration, were a kind of reference to the famous Russian winter. The friability of the cake was also a hint that indicated how "scattered" the French fled from the Russians. Of course, other versions of the origin of the famous dessert are offered in Europe. But the principle of the Napoleon cake recipe is the same: several layers of the finest cakes and impregnation from a noble custard.

Cooking Tips

Before you start cooking, check out the following tips for making Napoleon pie:

1. Rolling cakes requires some tricks. When you divide the dough into the desired number of parts, put them all in the refrigerator, leaving only one with which you will work at the moment. The dough for "Napoleon" contains a large amount of oil, so if you do not remove fragments of future cake layers in the cold, then it will be extremely difficult to roll them out.
2. After you finish cooking the cream, allow it to cool, and after that proceed with the impregnation of the cakes.

Varieties of "Napoleon"

There are many recipes for making Napoleon cake. On puff pastry, "classic", "wet", with chocolate, ice cream, on beer, with berries - there are simply a lot of options. Fantasy can be unlimited, if only there is a desire to create. However, we will focus on the most common recipes, since, having mastered them, you can begin to invent your own unique desserts.

"Napoleon classic"

Ingredients: wheat flour - 1800 grams, butter - 600 grams, eggs - 5 pieces, water - 200 ml, salt - half a teaspoon, sugar - 500 grams, milk - 3 liters, vanilla - to taste.

Cooking:

1. Pour flour (1500 grams) into a bowl. Throw oil into the slide (almost everything, but 100 grams will need to be postponed), cut into small fragments, so that then they mix with flour. We make a slide with a homogeneous texture from the mixture.
2. Cool the water, salt and pour it into the flour. In this case, do not forget to stir. When all the water has been poured, the dough must be stirred again.
3. Divide the mass into 9 equal fragments. Each of them is rolled into cakes (do not forget to sprinkle a little flour on the countertop first). The thickness of the cake should not exceed 2 mm.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, send cakes into it for 15 minutes.
5. While they are baking, make a cream. To do this, boil milk (2.5 l).
6. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs with sugar and flour. Then fill in the remaining milk. Again, we interfere to obtain a uniform consistency.
7. When the first bubbles appear in the milk, gently pour the egg-milk-flour mixture into it. Do not forget to constantly stir. We bring the resulting cream to a boil and immediately after that turn off the fire. Pour vanilla and add oil (100 g).
8. We proceed to the assembly of our delicate and fragrant Napoleon Classic cake. Each cake is well smeared with cream. Saving is not worth it. And do not be afraid if it starts to flow from the sides. This will only contribute to better impregnation. The last cake will serve as a decoration. It is necessary to grind it, and then sprinkle the top and sides of the collected cake with the resulting crumb.
9. Put the dessert in the refrigerator for 6 hours.

Classic recipe recommendation

If you divide the dough into the above number of parts, then the output will be cakes with a diameter of 30 centimeters. Cake can be made smaller in width, but larger in height. To do this, you need to fragment the dough at your own discretion.

Cake "Delicate Napoleon"

This recipe involves baking 12 of the thinnest cakes of relatively small diameter, each of which is saturated with a large amount of cream.

Ingredients for Tender Napoleon Cake:

1. Cream. Wheat flour - 3 tablespoons, eggs - 2 pieces, butter - 250 grams, sugar - 1.5 cups, milk - 1.5 cups.
2. Korzhi. Margarine - 200 grams, wheat flour - 2.5 cups, milk - 1.5 cups.

Cooking:

1. We make a cream. We prepare butter, flour, eggs, milk and sugar in advance.
2. Separate the whites from the yolks. We mix the latter with sugar, carefully add the flour and rub the resulting mass well. Pour in half a glass of milk, stir once more.
3. The rest of the milk is boiled. When the first bubbles appear, turn off the fire and fill it with the existing composition. We interfere.
4. We heat the finished cream, not forgetting to stir, so that it thickens faster. Do not let it boil. Upon reaching the desired consistency, remove from the stove. Cooling down.
5. Combine the softened butter with sugar and beat. The resulting mixture is introduced into the cream in parts.
6. Cooking cakes. Sift the flour, add chopped margarine to it. Rub the dough with your hands to the state of crumbs.
7. Make a dent in the mass and pour milk into it. Mix again.
8. Divide the dough into slices. From each we roll out layers no thicker than 1 mm.
9. Each cake is baked for no more than 5 minutes at a temperature of 200 degrees.
10. Putting the cake together. Well coat each layer with cream, fold it in a neat pile and cover with a cutting board. You can put a load on top. Leave in this condition for 10 hours.
11. The finished cake will sag significantly, but this should not be scared. Coat it with cream on top and sides and sprinkle with crumbs, which can be made from scraps of cakes.

Features of "Gentle Napoleon"

This recipe is a bit unusual, so the housewives doing it for the first time may have some difficulties:

1. A lot can come out of the specified amount of cream components. Therefore, do not pour the whole mass onto cakes. The leftovers should be stored in the refrigerator, so that later they can be eaten with berries or fruits.
2. During the final impregnation, a pan with a liter of water will fit perfectly as a kind of "press". And if 10 hours is not enough for you, you can leave the cake for a longer time.
3. As a rule, shortcakes, subject to the recommended amount of ingredients, come out small (about 15 cm in diameter). Therefore, if you need a cake for a solid company, take all the components in double size. The same goes for cream products.

Simple Napoleon with Orange Cream

Unlike other cooking technologies, this recipe does not require time-consuming multiple rolls of dough and subsequent baking of each cake individually.

Ingredients: egg - 2 pieces, butter - 200 grams, margarine - 300 grams, water - 200 ml, milk - 1 cup, sugar - 1 cup, wheat flour - 3 cups, salt - to taste, orange peel - a teaspoon, apple vinegar - a tablespoon.

Step by step recipe for the cake "Napoleon with orange cream":

1. Grind the flour with chilled margarine to a state of fine crumbs. A well-sharpened knife or a special nozzle for a blender is suitable for this.
2. Mix the egg with salt, vinegar and water. We make a small depression in the flour hill and pour the contents of the glass into it.
3. Knead the dough. It is necessary to act carefully, while obtaining a uniform consistency. We collect everything in a com and cut into three parts. We twist each component in parchment and put it in the refrigerator for half an hour.
4. At this time, mix the sugar with flour (1 tablespoon), egg and milk. We begin to cook, without stopping stirring. You can’t bring it to a boil, otherwise the future cream will deteriorate. Remove from heat when receiving a strong thick consistency. Let cool, then carefully introduce the butter and orange zest. Whip everything.
5. We take out the dough from the refrigerator. We roll out each layer, after which we spread it on a baking sheet, make several holes with a fork and bake. 15 minutes will be enough, the standard temperature is 180 degrees.
6. From the scraps left over from the dough, we sculpt a lump. We also roll it out and bake it. This layer will go to decoration.
7. All cakes must be cooled, after which each (except the last) is cut to an even rectangle.
8. We begin assembling our cake "Napoleon with Orange Cream". Coat the cake, cover it with the second and slightly press down. We repeat the manipulations until we collect all three levels. Top the cake with cream and sprinkle with crumbs, which we make from the last cake.
9. We keep the dessert in the refrigerator throughout the night so that it is properly saturated.

Recommendations for Napoleon with Orange Cream

This recipe is good in that all the components can be stored in advance and collect the cake later. This is especially convenient if you suddenly had an unplanned "invasion" of guests. But there are a number of subtleties:

1. Cakes should not be stored in the refrigerator for more than a week.
2. The cream is freshest only during the first day. Therefore, it must be a little incomplete to be stored: after cooking, let it cool, and we drive in the butter just before the dessert is assembled. If the cream is liquid, you can add a tablespoon of flour.
3. Instead of orange peel, other ingredients will do.

Delicious Cake "Napoleon with Sundae Cream"

List of ingredients:

1. For shortcakes. Flour - 2 cups + 3 tablespoons, butter - 250 grams, chicken egg - 1 piece, water - 1 cup, a pinch of salt and citric acid.
2. For the cream. Eggs - 5 pieces, milk - 0.5 liters, flour - 2 tablespoons, fat cream (about 33%) - 400 ml, sugar - half a glass, vanillin - 1 packet.

Preparation of dough and cream for the cake "Napoleon with ice cream":

1. Sift the flour (2 cups), add salt, citric acid, water and an egg to it. Mix to a homogeneous consistency, roll up, wrap in parchment and send to the refrigerator for half an hour.
2. Mix the butter with flour (3 tablespoons), give it a rectangular shape, also wrap it and send it to cool.
3. The first lump is rolled out on paper, leaving a thickened area in the middle. We take the second piece of dough and put it on this tight place, and wrap the edges from the first layer so that they cover our second part of the oil dough.
4. Roll out the resulting mass, then fold in 4 layers. Leave at room temperature for 10 minutes. After that, we repeat the manipulations with rolling and folding, but now we wrap it in paper and put it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
5. Step 4 is done twice more every 20 minutes.
6. From the resulting test we form 9 fragments. Another one we get from the segments. We bake the cakes on a baking sheet at a temperature of 200 degrees (the oven should be heated, and the dough should be pierced with a fork or knife). We wait for the golden hue, after which we take out the cakes and let them cool.
7. We boil milk. In a separate bowl, separate the whites from the yolks. The latter is mixed with vanilla, sugar and sifted flour. Gently pour milk into this mixture, not forgetting to stir constantly.
8. Put the cream on the fire. Boil for about 7 minutes, sometimes stir.
9. Remove from the stove and cool. Whip the cream (you need to do this when they are only from the refrigerator) and combine them with the main cream.
10. We collect our pie "Napoleon". To do this, grind 1 cake, and grease the rest with plenty of cream and fold it in a pile. Sprinkle the dessert with crumbs on top and from the sides. We let it stand overnight so that it is properly saturated.

Reviews

Haggle "Napoleon" is loved everywhere for its delicate taste and pleasant texture. It is not dry and not cloying. Of course, there are some difficulties in its recipe, and baking each individual cake requires a certain amount of time, but admittedly, it's worth it.

In addition, there is always room for creativity, since some changes can be made to the recipe at your own discretion. For example, Napoleon with a sundae always gets rave reviews from those who have tried it.