The good thing about Napoleon cake is that you can cook it yourself. Of course, you will have to spend a lot of time and effort, especially the first time. But at the same time, even an inexperienced pastry chef can cook Napoleon, and the cake will turn out to be beautiful and tasty.
This is not the case when you need to “fill your hand” for a long time - you can start cooking without additional training. The only caveat: to make Napoleon as juicy and soft as possible, it is necessary to keep the finished cake warm for at least 12 hours - so that the cakes can fully soak. But it is recommended to serve this cake chilled.
So, to make Napoleon, we need: for the dough - six glasses of premium flour, 750 grams of creamy margarine, half a liter of sour cream (preferably 20% fat); for cream - ten eggs, three liters of milk, four glasses of sugar, three tablespoons of flour, three tablespoons of starch, 100 grams of butter.
• Grate well-frozen margarine on a fine grater, add flour into it and crush the dough with your hands until a homogeneous mass, like damp sand, is obtained.
• Pour sour cream into the resulting dough and mix thoroughly so that no lumps remain.
• Divide the dough into 15 equal pieces, roll them into balls, cover to prevent airing and refrigerate for 3-4 hours.
• Prepare the cream: dilute the starch and flour in a glass of milk, and boil the remaining milk.
• Beat eggs with sugar, and pour boiling milk into the resulting mass, stirring thoroughly. Bring this mixture to a boil over the lowest heat, stirring continuously, and as soon as it boils, pour in the milk with flour and starch, stirring until thickened.
• Place the finished cream in a cold place, and after it has cooled, add the butter cut into small pieces and stir.
• Bake the cake base separately by removing the balls of dough from the refrigerator one at a time and carefully spread each ball with your fingers along the bottom of the oiled baking dish. Try to make the dough layer as uniform as possible. One cake is baked for about five minutes in a well-heated (up to 180-190 degrees) oven. Bake all cakes in the same way.
• By the way, if you wish, you can store ready-made cakes for several days until you find time to cook Napoleon. But it is better to prepare the cream just before preparing the cake.
• Transfer the cakes, carefully smearing each of them with a layer of cream. In this case, you do not need to press down the cakes. Crush the last cake in a mortar, mix with chopped nuts - and get a ready-made substance in order to sprinkle the cake on top and on the sides.
