Napoleons

Napoleons are my all-time favorite pastry. For as long as I remember I’ve loved the combination of flaky pastry and creamy custard. I knew they were hard work, but I had no idea how involved this recipe would become—I had to make the puff pastry, poured fondant, and vanilla pastry cream. Being the Napoleon connoisseur that I am, I chose to use Mushet’s quick puff pastry recipe and combine it with the poured fondant and pastry cream recipe from Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible (having tried it before with delicious results). The poured fondant required 24 hours, so I started with that first. I combined sugar, water, and corny syrup in a saucepan and heated it to 238 degrees then poured it into a food processor fitted with a metal blade. After cooling the mixture to 140 degrees, I processed it for 3 minutes until the mixture turned a cloudy, creamy consistency. I then poured the fondant into a plastic-lined measuring cup to solidify overnight. The next day, I rolled out the quick puff pastry into a 10x16” rectangle and cut that into sixteen equal rectangles that would form the layers for the Napoleons. After pricking the pastry with a fork and topping them with sugar, they chilled for 30 minutes before baking in a 375-degree oven for 23 minutes. The next step was to cook the vanilla pastry cream—a combination of half & half, sugar, eggs, vanilla, butter, and cornstarch. Once the pastry cream was complete, it chilled in the fridge for four hours. With the pastry cream and puff pastry cooled, it was time to reheat the poured fondant to create the top payer of the Napoleon. I poured the liquefied fondant over 6 pieces of the puff pasty and created the traditional pattern on top with lines of melted dark chocolate pulled with a fork. Finally! Time to assemble the Napoleons! I layered pastry cream onto the puff pastry, added more pastry cream, and topped with a fondant-covered piece of puff pastry. Ahh, victory was mine! The finished Napoleons chilled for an hour before I devoured one. The Napoleon was buttery, flaky, creamy, and exactly what I remembered but better. I am already craving more….

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