Everyone knows and loves many Soviet-style Napoleon cake with custard. This magnificent dessert has a great taste, it is very gentle and nutritious. That is why many housewives dream of learning how to cook it at home. Practice shows that this can be done quite simply, having a small baggage of culinary knowledge. In addition, to prepare your favorite dessert you will not need a huge amount of ingredients - there are few of them and, besides, all the necessary products are quite simple.
So, we will consider several options for recipes for the Napoleon cake with custard.
general information
The cake, named after the famous French commander, is very beloved among representatives of different age categories. The technology of its preparation involves the creation of puff pastry, prepared on the basis of flour and butter. As for the layer in the form of a cream, various recipes offer the use of different filling options, however, practice shows that custard is considered the most popular.
Napoleon cake comes in two varieties: wet and dry. In the first case, it is made on the basis of dry, crispy cakes, and in the second they are softened and nourished by a special cream. Next, we consider several options for preparing wet Napoleon, which are easy to put into practice in simple home cooking.
As for nutritional value, the caloric content of Napoleon cake with custard is about 200-300 kcal per 100 g of product - this indicator directly depends on the fat content of the ingredients used. In the dessert there is a huge supply of carbohydrates (about 25.9 g per 100 g of cake), as well as some proteins and fats (3.6 and 9.5 g, respectively). Nutritionists recommend using such a product in the morning, during breakfast. Thanks to this, you can perfectly recharge your batteries for the whole day.
Cooking cream
Properly prepared custard for the Napoleon cake is of particular importance in the final result. To prepare it, you need to take a couple of fresh chicken eggs and, sending them into a bowl for cooking, rub well with a fork or whisk. After this, they should add 3 cups of sugar, a couple of tablespoons of flour and mix well again until smooth.
In a heat-resistant dish, pour a couple glasses of fresh cow's milk and put it on the stove in order to heat the contents. After the milk becomes hot (but not boiling water), it is necessary to pour a mixture made of eggs, sugar and flour into it with a very thin stream, stirring constantly - only in this case lumps will not form in the cream, and during cooking the mass will not will burn. The resulting mass must be put on low heat and cook, stirring occasionally. After the mass becomes thicker, it must be removed from the heat and allowed to cool.
After the mixture becomes colder, it is necessary to proceed to the final stage of preparation of custard. At this stage, you need to take a pound of butter and hold it for a short time at room temperature. After the ingredient becomes softer, it must be beaten with a mixer until a thick mass is formed. After that, parts of it must be introduced into the custard and cooled cream, whisking the ingredients in parallel with a mixer. When all the components are connected, the custard is ready.
Cooking dough
In order to make homemade Napoleon cake with custard, you need to prepare the right puff pastry. All recipes for this dessert include the creation of dry thin cakes, the preparation of which will require a large amount of time and patience.
The dough for the Napoleon cake with custard is made on the basis of flour and butter. To create it, you need to pour half a glass of cold purified water into the container selected for its preparation, add half of the egg white to it, as well as a teaspoon of vinegar. The ingredients should be slightly beaten to a state so that they are evenly distributed among themselves.
In a separate bowl, prepare other ingredients for the dough. On the table, pour 4 cups of pre-sifted flour. To it you need to add 400 g of cold butter. Chop the ingredients together with a knife until the butter turns into crumbs sprinkled in flour. After this, the ingredients must be brought together, formed into a slide, made a recess in it and very carefully, with a thin stream, pour the previously prepared liquid made on the basis of water, protein and vinegar into it. From the resulting mass, knead the dough. The output should be a fairly solid and very delicate lump of white.
The finished dough should be divided into 16-18 parts, rolling each of them into a ball. In this form, they must be laid on a baking sheet and sent for a couple of hours in the refrigerator.
After the specified time, you need to get one lump from the refrigerator and roll it very thinly on the surface previously sprinkled with flour. Housewives practicing the preparation of Napoleon cake with custard according to this recipe assure that the thinner the layers are rolled out, the tastier the finished dessert will turn out. After that, the resulting layer must be laid out on a baking tray, previously lubricated with a small amount of vegetable oil. Practice shows that this is best done with a rolling pin. Professional chefs advise at this stage to pierce the cake with a fork in several places - this way you can avoid bloating the cake.
The prepared product must be sent for baking in the oven, heated to a temperature of 200 degrees. When the layer acquires a golden hue, this will indicate its readiness.
After the cake is cooked, this procedure must be done with the remaining balls that are in the refrigerator. When all the cakes are ready, they must be allowed to stand for some time - for a short period they will cool down and be ready to form a cake. Some housewives have been preparing Napoleon cake with custard for several days. This is due to the fact that the cakes, the preparation of which takes a considerable amount of time, can retain their freshness for 2-3 days.
Product Formation
After all the cakes are ready, it is easy to notice that they all turned out uneven at the edges. In order for the finished product to be beautiful and neat, you need to cut them correctly. To do this, each layer must be laid on top of each other and, having pressed on top with a cover of a suitable size, cut off at its edges. In no case do you need to throw out the crumb, which will turn out in the end - it is useful for decorating the cake.
After the cakes are aligned, each of them must be covered with pre-cooked and cooled custard, and then put on top of each other. Before you make the grease, it is best to crush the formed bumps on the cake layers - so the product will turn out to be more juicy after the soaking procedure.
The top cake of the cake must also be greased, the same thing must be done with its edges. The scraps that formed after shaping the cakes should be crushed in a separate bowl, and then sprinkle with them the product both on top and on the sides.
After the last procedure, the cake should be left for a couple of hours at room temperature, and then sent to the refrigerator for the night.
Dessert without baking
In order to cook a delicious Napoleon cake without baking, you need to spend literally 10 minutes, but only on condition that all the ingredients for it are ready. To do this, you must first create a custard. It is made on the basis of milk and eggs.
To prepare custard for the Napoleon cake, you need to take 2.5 cups of fresh milk and boil it on the stove. While it is heating, you can cook the rest of the mass. To do this, you need to combine in one dish a couple of chicken eggs and a glass of sugar. Add two tablespoons of starch to the ingredients, and then knead everything into a homogeneous mass.
After the milk boils, it is necessary to gradually pour the egg-sugar mixture into it in a thin stream, while stirring the contents of the pan. When the ingredients are collected, it is necessary to reduce the fire to a minimum and continue the cooking process for about five more minutes - during this time the mass will thicken and will begin to resemble cream in its consistency. Ready filler should be removed from the stove and cool. After the cream has cooled, 200 g of butter should be added to it, which must first be softened. The ingredients should be a couple of tablespoons of condensed milk and a bag of vanillin. After a short whipping of the components with a mixer at a slow speed, the custard will be ready.
Now is the time to create the basis for the Napoleon cake with custard. To do this, take a lingering cookie. It should be dipped on all sides in the prepared coffee and layered in layers on a dish prepared for serving the cake. Each tier needs to be smeared with cooked cream. After the product is fully equipped, you need to coat it with cream on all sides and decorate with cookie crumbs mixed with crushed walnuts. Napoleon cake is ready without baking .
Dough Cake
Modern store counters are ready to offer housewives ready-made puff pastry, which is in great demand among buyers. Cake "Napoleon" from ready-made puff pastry is prepared much faster than if you create the basis for it yourself.
To do this, take the dough purchased in the store in the amount of 1.5 kg and divide it into 12-16 equal parts using a knife. Each of them must be rolled into a thin layer - they should be baked in the oven separately, until a golden coating is formed. Before going to the oven, the cakes must be pierced with a fork in several places. Practice shows that, provided that the oven is heated to 200 degrees, it takes no more than five minutes to cook each cake.
After the base for the cake is ready, it should be cooled, aligned in one shape in order to get a product with the same size edges. Then each cake should be greased with a cream prepared in advance according to the recipe described above and garnished with any suitable method.
On kefir
The recipe for “Napoleon” cake with kefir with custard is a real find for housewives who want to surprise with their skill not only households, but also all guests invited to the feast. The dough for him is prepared quite simply, and custard can be made according to the recipe suggested above.
To prepare the dough, you need to take three glasses of flour, sift it well and mix with half a teaspoon of salt. To the resulting mass, add 200 g of cold margarine. After this, the components should be chopped with a knife so that they turn into a homogeneous crumb. This can also be done with a knife. After that, a glass of fat yogurt should be added to the indicated ingredients. Now you can start kneading the dough - at the exit it should turn out to be dense and quite tender.
After all preparations have been made, it is necessary to divide the total lump into 8 balls of the same size and send them for 1.5-2 hours in the refrigerator. After the specified time, the layers should be rolled out and baked separately. From finished cakes, it is necessary to form the product, coat it with finished and cooled cream, and then go to the refrigerator for soaking.
Baking Napoleon cake at home in this way takes a considerable amount of time, but the output is a rather delicate and very tasty cake that will definitely be loved by all family members.
Yogurt cream
Consider another option on how to cook custard for the Napoleon cake. Made according to such a recipe, it turns out to be incredibly tender and very tasty, which, undoubtedly, differs in the qualities of the finished dessert.
To create it, you need to mix 250 ml of cow's milk, a glass of fat yogurt (without flavoring additives), chicken yolk and a tablespoon of liquid bee honey in one dish. The mixture must be brought to uniformity without whipping it, and then put on a slow fire for heating. In the process of cooking it must be constantly stirred - in this way the cream will turn out without lumps and will not curl. After the mass becomes thicker, it must be removed from the heat and allowed to cool.
When the cream becomes cold, a small amount of fruit topping or berry syrup should be added to it. After thoroughly mixing until smooth, the cream will be ready for use.
Some chefs recommend adding a small amount of butter to the cream - this ingredient can make its taste more delicate.
Custard Sour Cream
The classic Napoleon cake with custard is wonderfully combined with sour cream based filler. How can I prepare a delicious cream that will work wonderfully with puff cakes? Let's consider it further.
To make custard according to this recipe, you need to take a glass of cow's milk and pour a couple tablespoons of potato starch into it. Stir the ingredients, add three chicken eggs to them and beat well with a mixer at a slow speed.
In a separate bowl, you should heat a couple of glasses of milk, doing it over low heat, avoiding boiling the contents of the container. After the liquid becomes hot, it must be very slowly poured into cold milk with starch, stirring constantly - so the protein will not curl. Now the ingredients must be thoroughly beaten with a mixer and put together on fire. After the contents boil, you need to introduce 2.5 cups of fat homemade sour cream into it and beat again. Cream for the cake is ready.
Cake decoration
How to decorate a Napoleon cake? Many housewives who want to surprise guests with a beautiful product are often asked this question. Practice shows that for this purpose, branded manufacturers, as well as simple housewives, use the option of banal sprinkling it with crumbs made from scraps of cake. However, you can give vent to your imagination and apply other ways to decorate the classic Napoleon cake with custard.
Some culinary experts advise using sugar sprinkles, which you can either do on your own or cook in the store. Moreover, in the second case, it can even be multi-colored and presented in different forms.
Also, a beautiful external picture can be created using custard and sprinkles of cocoa made through curly stencils.
If desired, you can separately prepare a protein cream and lay it on the surface of the most delicious Napoleon cake. If desired, a cream base can be given a different color using food coloring.
Knowing several options for decorating the Napoleon cake, you can surprise guests with the same dish each time, offering it in different variations of serving.
Cooking tricks
Practice shows that a cake with the beautiful name "Napoleon" is prepared for a long time, but very simply. Despite this, there are certain culinary subtleties, following which, you can achieve an amazing result.
First of all, to create a product, you must definitely choose the highest grade flour. It should be carefully sieved. To achieve the splendor of the test, this procedure is recommended to be performed several times.
All dairy ingredients that are part of the test, you need to take only the fattest - it is with them that you get a gentle dessert at the exit. It is desirable to prepare and roll out the dough at a colder temperature - the product should not float. If the Napoleon cake is made from ready-made puff pastry, then it must first be kept in the refrigerator.
And finally, a few words about the wet test. In order to get it, cakes must be pre-saturated before serving (at least 6-7 hours). If you do this 30-40 minutes before removal, the dessert will turn out to be no less tasty, but crispy. In the recipes of the Napoleon cake with custard, as a rule, the option of preparing it in a "wet" form is indicated.