JUICY AND TENDER "NAPOLEON" ON WATER - THE SIMPLE RECIPECakes:More simple recipe NAPOLEON can not be! CakeIt turns out very tasty, the dough consists of many layers and literally melts in your mouth. Once you take a bite of this Napoleon, you will never want another.
His recipe is not intricate, but you will have to work hard on it for glory. Unless, of course, you really want the same Napoleon cake
"Napoleon" on the water - a chic and most festive cake ">
Moist and very tender, this cake fully justifies the hassle of preparation.
Butter - 450g
Flour - 4 cups
Cold water - 250g
This dough is called "chopped", because. it needs to be chopped with a knife to the state of dry crumbs, or rather, only flour and butter, water is added a little later.
When the flour and butter look like this, you can add water.
Combine water and crumbs together and then chop a little more so that the water is evenly distributed. After that, you can start kneading it with your hands, then the butter will soften a little from the heat of your hands and the dough will begin to gather into a lump.
Now it needs to be divided into approximately equal parts, I got 14 parts
Roll each into a ball, so that it would be clear what size
Put all the balls in zip bags and refrigerate. It's time to prepare the cream.
CREAM
For the cream, you will need 5 eggs, 1 liter of milk, 1/3 cup flour, 2 cups sugar, 1/2 tablespoon vanilla
Put eggs, sugar, vanilla, flour and about a glass of milk into a blender. Pour the rest of the milk into a saucepan and place over medium heat.
A few words about vanilla. You can use an extract, but I don’t like it for the presence of alcohol in it, which makes the aroma sharp. I recently discovered vanilla paste for myself - these are whole vanilla beans in sugar syrup - a very pleasant product
When the milk is almost boiling, add a mixture of eggs, sugar, flour and milk into it and stir well, keep on fire and stir until the cream boils and thickens. Stir along the bottom of the pan so that the cream does not burn. Its final consistency should be like this
EDIT: I used double the amount of cream for this amount of dough, so either half the dough or cook twice as much cream at once
Well, now you can leave the whole thing in the refrigerator overnight, or immediately start baking cakes. To do this, take each piece of dough and make it flat
After that, we begin to roll out on a well-floured board in all directions to get a relatively round layer. I roll out the dough very thinly, but you can save the effort and roll it out twice as thick, then you will need to initially divide the dough into larger pieces and give the cake time to soak, at least 12 hours.
I usually cut the dough for the plate on which I will serve the cake, this time I cut it according to the markings on the board, and the diameter of each cake came out about 25 cm. cake.
Now the cake must be carefully transferred to a sheet of parchment. To do this, I put the rolling pin on the center of the cake and carefully wrap it around the rolling pin
Cakes need to be baked at a temperature of 375F for about 5 minutes for each cake. I always bake 2 cakes at a time. Determine readiness by color. If the cake is even a little burnt - in the trash, otherwise it will ruin the whole cake. Cakes can be pierced with a fork so that they don’t bubble, but I don’t do this, because. it doesn't bother me at all. The scraps go into the oven last. Then I put them in a zip bag and roll them with a rolling pin so that they turn into crumbs.
Cakes can be immediately put on a plate from the oven and greased with cream as they are ready, I didn’t do this this time, but I recommend it - it’s easier.
When you collect the cake, each cake needs to be lightly pressed so that it breaks and lies well on the previous layer of cream.
When all the cakes are folded, sprinkle the cake on all sides with crumbs.
- 250 ml milk
- 200 g sugar
- 100 g butter
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp without a slide of salt
- 2 tbsp. l. cognac (or vodka, or natural vinegar 6%, or 1 tablespoon table 9%)
- 600-650 g flour
- 1 liter of milk
- 200 ml cream (any, I have 20%)
- 250 g sugar
- 100 g butter
- 60 g flour
- 4 yolks
- 1 p. vanilla sugar(10 g)
Cooking:
Cooking dough.
Put the egg, sugar, vanilla sugar, salt in a container and beat well with a mixer until foamy.
Heat milk and butter cubes in a saucepan until medium-hot (hot to your finger, but tolerable). The butter should melt completely.
Pour the hot milk into the beaten egg while beating with a mixer.
Add cognac, vodka or vinegar. These ingredients additionally loosen the dough when baking, but if you don’t have anything like that, then it’s okay, just skip this ingredient.
Pour in most of the flour in parts, kneading the dough well with a spoon.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. The dough should stop sticking to your hands and look like a big soft pliable ball, but not tight. You may need more or less flour, I needed 630 g of flour.
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces, roll each into a ball.
Prepare a lid or a large plate with a diameter of about 25 cm. Roll each ball into a very thin circle, adding a little flour if necessary (I rolled it out immediately on baking paper).
Periodically try on the reference cap.
Using the lid, cut out a circle, or circle the plate with a knife.
Put in an oven preheated to 180 degrees, bake for about 3-8 minutes. When a few slightly tanned areas appear on the cake, then it is ready. I baked each cake for 6.30 minutes. While one cake is baking, you can roll out the next one on another sheet of paper.
This is what a stack of finished cakes looks like.
Cooking cream.
Whisk egg yolks, sugar, vanilla sugar well.
Add flour and about half a glass of milk or cream, stir well until smooth.
Pour the rest of the milk and cream into a saucepan with a thick bottom, bring to a hot state.
Pour in the yolk mixture while stirring with a whisk.
Cook until the mixture thickens, stirring all the time, especially at the bottom.
The consistency of the finished cream is approximately like dough for pancakes.
Cool the cream slightly (about 20-30 minutes), add butter cubes, mix well so that the butter melts. As it cools, the cream becomes much thicker.
It is better to impregnate the cake with warm cream.
We collect the cake.
On a board or a large plate, spread the foil with a margin around the edges so that you can, then wrap the cake.
Put the first cake, generously smear with cream (about 140 g).
I would characterize this Napoleon with many flattering epithets. It is not at all dry, but not stuck together in a single lump: puff cakes are felt, but they are well soaked, soft enough that the cake can be eaten with a fork. A minimum of butter - only in cake layers, the cake is not very sweet and light.
Butter (natural) - 250 g
Flour (about 4 cups)
Sour cream - 250 ml
Chicken egg (2 eggs (cake) + 7 yolks (cream))
Milk (cream) - 1.3 l
Sugar (cream) - 360 g
Vanilla sugar - 1 tbsp. l.
Cooking cakes. Preparing two doughs for Napoleon.
1 dough:
Melt 1 pack of butter (250g), remove from heat and mix with 1 cup of flour. No need to boil! 
Dough:
Beat 1 cup sour cream with 2 eggs. Add 550 ml. flour (2 cups + 1/5 cup more) Mix. It will turn out very soft dough sticky, the same as a normal bread or butter. Knead it for about 15 minutes, until it begins to peel off the walls of the bowl and stops sticking. It is not necessary to develop gluten especially. 
Divide the second dough into 5-6 equal parts.
Sprinkle the table soundly with flour (well - generously, but not in a thick layer). On another table or the free half of the same table, roll out polyethylene (food wrap). Roll out one part of the dough thinly, carefully transfer it to a film and only then spread it with the 1st dough. If the first dough is very badly smeared, add 1-2 s to it. l. vegetable oil. It is more convenient to smear with a spatula or, in the absence of one, with a finger tilted horizontally on the table. Spooning can tear the dough.
Roll out the next part of the dough to the same size as the previous one, transfer it to the previous part smeared with the first dough, trying to make the edges match and only then spread with the first dough. Do the same with the rest of the test. 
Roll all the smeared cakes into a roll. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate overnight (12 hours). 
Cut the roll across into 18-20 parts up to 1.5 cm thick. Put the parts on a plate and put everything in the refrigerator, except for one, the one that we will now roll out. Here is the roll inside. 
Roll out evenly, without thinning on a generously floured table to 1.5 - 2 mm. (Roll out not along the cut, where the layers are, but along the outside) It is not necessary at all to transparency - otherwise it will be difficult not to burn the cake during baking.
To make the cakes smoother, cut the edges with a plate. Finished cakes no longer cut - too fragile. When baking, the shape will still be slightly distorted, but later you will need to trim the assembled cake with a knife and the problem will be solved. Crush the scraps immediately into a ball so that they do not dry out. Then we will also make cakes from them.
Bake cakes for Napoleon one by one on a baking sheet (dry, not greased) in a very hot oven. Do not overdo it, as soon as the dough is baked - immediately pull it out. Here you need to relentlessly monitor each cake, because they are baked very quickly. 
Remove the cakes from the baking sheet and stack them on a plate.
As soon as all the dough is over, roll out the scrap cakes according to the same principle. So many cakes turned out from the whole dough (+ from scraps) 
Once all the cakes are baked, prepare the cream.
Put the yolks in a bowl and mix with sugar and vanilla sugar (the yolks will mix with difficulty).
Pour in 50 ml of cold milk and mix.
* Adding milk makes it easier to mix, but do not pour in a lot of milk, otherwise the mixture will become too thin and lumps may form when adding flour to the yolk mass. Better milk pour in two doses - then lumps will not form.
Add the sifted flour to the yolks and mix again. (as biscuit dough- down up)
Pour another 50 ml of cold milk - mix everything together (the mixture should be like liquid sour cream in consistency). 
Pour the remaining milk into a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally and making sure that the milk does not burn.
* Instead of vanilla sugar, you can use a vanilla pod - the finished cream will turn out much more aromatic. The pod must be cut in half (one half immediately removed and used for another dish). Scrape the seeds from the remaining half. Put the vanilla seeds and the peeled half of the pod into the milk. Bring milk and vanilla to a boil, stirring. Then remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve.
Pour the yolk mass into a large clean saucepan (I took a non-stick deep frying pan).
* For the amount of cream given in the recipe, it is optimal to take a steel or non-stick pan with a volume of ~ 3 liters. enamel pan it is not advisable to use - the cream will burn to the bottom.
Pour hot milk in a thin stream into the yolk mass, stirring.
Put the saucepan with the yolk-milk mixture on the stove and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly with a silicone spatula. IT IS NECESSARY TO MIX VERY FAST.
The cream will gradually thicken as it heats up. As soon as it starts to boil, immediately remove from heat.
As you can see, perfect smoothness - no lumps. 
We set aside a few cakes for searching.
The rest is smeared with cream (hot, only cooked). It took me 5-6 s for one cake. l. cream - that is, a lot, no need to be greedy, the cream practically does not flow out! That's how tall he is, not crushed.
We leave the cake for an hour at room temperature (so that the hot cream soaks the cakes and they do not break when tamping), then gently press the cake with our hands so that it settles.
Trim the edges of the cake with a knife.
With a rolling pin, we crumble a few pending cakes and sprinkle the cake with them.
You can put a load on top of the cake, but this can damage the cake - I was afraid. But the cake was soaked as it should without a load!
We put the Napoleon cake in the refrigerator for 12 hours so that it is well soaked. There are about 18 cakes in this Napoleon.
Soaked cake in a section. As you can see, the cream does not flow out, but the cakes are very soft and perfectly soaked.
We made sure that cooking the Napoleon cake is simple: you need to stock up on food, patience, inspiration and a good appetite. And be sure, at least for one evening, forget about the diet! For you, your favorite cake recipes that we adore.
I have been baking "Napoleon" according to this recipe for 10 years and this cake has become my signature dish!!! Napoleon cake is always a holiday in our family! If someone has a different opinion regarding this famous dessert, I can say with full confidence that you have not tried the real Napoleon. All quick options from ready-made puff pastry are not even close to it. Delicious, but not the same.
Unfortunately, in our time, the purchased store analogue is not much like classic cake Napoleon, so the only option is to try the real, most delicious layer cake with gentle custard, there will be self-cooking at home. Troublesome, but worth it!
I hope my step by step photo you need a recipe.
For cooking, you will need very simple and affordable products:
Ingredients:
For test:
- Wheat flour (highest grade) - 6 cups,
- Margarine or butter - 2 packs (200 grams each),
- Chicken eggs - 2 pieces,
- Salt - 1 teaspoon,
- Water - 450 ml.
For custard:
- Chicken eggs - 4 pieces,
- Sugar - 0.5 kg,
- Butter- 0.5 kg,
- Wheat flour - 4 tbsp. spoons,
- Cow's milk - 1 liter.
Cooking cakes:
Please note that the dough for the cake must be kneaded with a knife. So the cold butter will not melt from the heat of your hands and will take the amount of flour that is needed. Otherwise, by overdoing it with flour, you risk getting a very tough dough. Whereas, ideally, thin cakes should be crispy and at the same time tender. 
Lightly freeze margarine or butter, so it will be easier to work with. Sift flour onto a work surface. In flour, you need to finely chop the frozen butter with a knife, sprinkling it from the edge to the center. As a result, you should get a dry crumb. 
Now we take a half-liter jar and break two chicken eggs into it, fill the rest of the jar with water. Shake the contents thoroughly with a fork, adding salt there. 
From the resulting flour crumbs, we form a slide, make a recess in it and begin to add liquid from the jar. 
Again, everything will need to be “chopped” with a large knife, 
Those. You don't even have to get your hands dirty in the dough. 
Pour the liquid mixture in parts until it runs out and work with a knife all the time. 
Before our eyes, the sand crumb turns into a homogeneous dough. 
As a result of this work, you should get a homogeneous lump. 
The finished dough for the Napoleon cake should be divided into 16 equal lumps, laid on a board, wrapped with cling film or a bag, sent to the refrigerator for 20 - 30 minutes. Or lightly freeze in the freezer. 
Then we take the dough out of the refrigerator, and roll each lump into thin flatbread, using the minimum amount of flour to sprinkle the table. 
The cake should be as thin as possible, literally translucent. Any form. It is easier to roll out rectangles to the size of the baking sheet. With round cakes a little more difficult, they need to be cut in raw or ready-made, and there will be more of them. 
The dough is quite elastic, do not be afraid to tear it when transferring to a baking sheet. Even if this happens, there is nothing terrible in it. Cakes can be pricked with a fork in several places so that they swell less. 
We send the baking sheet to the oven, which needs to be heated to 180 - 200 degrees. We bake the base until a beautiful golden color. While one cake is baking, roll out the next one. 
As a result, you should get 16 ruddy puff cakes of a rectangular shape or a little more round. 
Custard preparation:
Don't look the best recipe I assure you, this one is perfect! 
To prepare it, you need to beat in a deep cup chicken eggs and wheat flour to a homogeneous state. It's easier to use a blender. 
In a separate tall saucepan with a thick bottom, heat the milk and dissolve in it granulated sugar. There is a lot of cream, the dishes should be capacious. And in no case do not use an enameled or aluminum saucepan. In the first it will burn, in the second it will color the cream gray when whipped with butter. 
Pour the egg mass into the hot milk with sugar in a thin stream. In the meantime, stir constantly. Cook the custard on a quiet fire with constant stirring. 
Cook until puree. Cool the mixture until room temperature. Stir several times while cooling to prevent a crust from forming. 
Butter must be taken out of the refrigerator in advance so that it becomes soft. Before you combine with the cream, the butter must be beaten until smooth. 
Only then, in small portions, add the cooled cream to the oil. Not vice versa! 
Beat with a mixer until smooth. 
It remains only to collect our gorgeous cake.
Assembly:
I'll show you how to make sure that the cake plate remains clean during assembly. A sheet of baking paper - this little detail is a little secret of your accuracy. We line the bottom of the dish or tray with parchment or paper. 
Lubricate the first cake with custard, cover with the second and press to make the cake denser. 
Repeat until all layers are laid. Don't forget to tamp. Napoleon must be tight! 
It's time to remove the sheet of paper, hold the cake with one hand, pull out the sheet with the other. 
From scraps or one cake you need to make a crumb. You can crumble them with your fingers, or you can put them in a bag and roll it with a rolling pin. Sprinkle the top and sides of the cake with crumbs. My sides are not sprinkled with anything. In this crumb, you can already add chopped walnuts or crumbled chocolate, this cake will not get any worse.
We leave the finished cake in the refrigerator for impregnation and solidification of the cream, it can take at least 3 hours, it is better to wait overnight. 
I think I convinced you that cooking Napoleon at home is quite simple and affordable, the main thing is that there is a desire! 
In the Guinness Book of Records, sweet Napoleon is mentioned as the most big cake weighing 1.5 tons, it was baked by the culinary specialists of the city of Zelenograd.
This layer cake can be found in many cuisines of the world, but it will be called differently. For example, in England you will be served a vanilla slice, but in Italy and France you can order at any Millefeuille cafe and they will bring you a piece of airy multi-layered cake, known to you as Napoleon, by the way, in translation millefeuille means "thousand layers". But the Americans, like us, know this puff cake called "Napoleon".
There are a great many stories of the creation of this famous dessert, but I would like to tell one of the most unusual and, in my opinion, the most piquant. As you know, Bonaparte was a big fan of hitting on pretty girls. So one day, flirting with another cute lady-in-waiting, his wife found him. And in order to get out of this very piquant situation, Napoleon told her about how he whispered in the ear of a beautiful girl about his newly invented recipe. delicious cake, here, it turns out, from what the girl blushed so much! The wife pretended to believe her missus, but demanded proof. Bonaparte hastily dictated the cake recipe, a complete improvisation. Of course, Bonaparte's chef made some adjustments to the recipe. As a result, for breakfast, the spouses had an extraordinary cake on the table, which got its name - Napoleon, in honor of its author.
Well, if we talk about the plausible story of the creation of a cake beloved by many, then it was baked for the first time in 1912 by Moscow confectioners for the 100th anniversary of the victory over the French and gave it the name Napoleon.
You just have to defeat your "Frenchman" in the kitchen, the step-by-step photo recipe presented today will help you. Perhaps this cake will become your signature sweet dish, like mine. I have been baking it for over 10 years, and I thank Natalia Pyatkova for the recipe.
