One of my favourite childhood memories was walking to a European bakery in our neighborhood with my Grandfather, called Modern Bakery. We used to get freshly baked bread to go with our meal, and I got to choose something from the desserts. I always picked the same thing every time…Napoleones. My Grandfather would try to convince me to try something else as the bakery had many wonderful things to choose from…but no it had to be this!
That bakery closed down a long time ago, and I have not found one in town that makes them like that….that is okay now I get to make them when ever I want from my own kitchen. The ones from the bakery were so big, so many layers of custard and pastry!
Napoleones are also known as mille-feuille, gateaux Napoleon, or 1000 layer cake. Traditionally made with 3 or more layers they are delicious and so beautiful…this is my humble attempt in making my favourite childhood dessert!
What you will need:
- 2 rolls frozen and thawed puff pastry or home made
Pastry cream:
- 2 cups milk or half and half cream
- 4 large egg yolks
- 9 tbsp granulated white sugar
- 6 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp vanilla or 1/2 tsp vanilla beans
- 1 tsp butter
In a medium size sauce pan, add the sugar, flour, eggs and milk or half and half, stir and cook on medium heat, constantly stirring till thickened. Remove from heat and add the vanilla and butter, stir in when melted.
Roll out sheet of puff pastry, poke with fork and add another baking sheet on top to flatten pastry. Bake at 400, midway through baking remove top sheet off and let the pastry bake till its golden. Repeat with the other sheet of puff pastry.
Glaze:
- 2 cups icing sugar, 2 tbsp hot water
- 1 tbsp chocolate chips melted
it helped me to look @ these pics. I was craving for something sweet whole day. I was lazy to make sth, I had pretzel sticks with nuttella. It was pretty good actually. I started it & my kids went crazy, they ate like hungry hippos, lol.