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Russian Napoleon cake
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Russian Napoleon cake

Crispy puff pastry and delicate vanilla pudding cream – a heavenly delicious combination, which makes the Russian Napoleon cake. It tastes creamy, airy, not too sweet and is very aromatic. It is not without reason that Napoleon cake is one of the most popular Russian cakes - and has been for ages. According to this recipe you can make the classic cake Napoleon yourself.
Course Dessert
Cuisine Russian
Prep Time 50 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Cooling time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 14

Ingredients

for the dough

  • 250 g butter (cold)
  • 1 egg (cold)
  • 200 ml cold water
  • approx. 520 g flour
  • 10 g baking powder
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • flour for the work surface

for the cream

  • 1 l milk
  • 170 g butter (room temperature)
  • 300 g sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 60 g flour
  • vanilla

Instructions

Preparation of the dough

  • Mix flour with baking powder and salt. Add cold butter and chop it finely.
  • Add egg and cold water and knead it quickly to a soft, only roughly homogeneous dough. (Note the tips and tricks at the top of the post for this).
  • Divide the dough into 9 equal pieces, spread them on a plate or cutting board, cover and chill for 1.5 - 2 hours.
  • Then roll out each piece of dough thinly on a sheet of baking paper lined with baking paper and dusted a little with flour, and cut out a circle of about Ø 24 cm from each rolled-out piece of dough. While you are working with one piece of dough, leave the others in the refrigerator. (Note the tips and tricks for this at the top of the post).
  • Prick each dough circle several times with a fork and bake the dough circles one by one on the same sheet of baking paper on which they were rolled out, on a baking sheet in a preheated oven at 210 °C for about 5 - 7 minutes each, until they turn a light golden brown color. Let the cake layers cool down afterwards.
  • Roll out all the leftover dough from cutting out the circles thinly into a pastry sheet, bake it just like the pie crusts, let it cool, and crumble it.

Preparation of the cream

  • Mix eggs and flour until a homogeneous mass without lumps.
  • Put milk and sugar in a thick-bottomed saucepan, put it on the stove and heat it, stirring, until the sugar is melted and the milk is just before boiling.
  • Take the saucepan with the hot milk off the heat and immediately add the egg-flour mixture in a thin stream, stirring constantly.
  • Place the saucepan back on the stove, bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, and then cook, stirring, for 1 - 2 minutes until it reaches a custard-like consistency. Take the pudding mixture off the heat and let it cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.
  • Add vanilla and soft butter cut into pieces to the pudding mixture and mix until it becomes a homogeneous cream.

Preparation of the Napoleon cake

  • Spread each cake layer with the cream and stack the cake layers on top of each other.
  • Brush the edges of the cake with the leftover cream and sprinkle the top and edges with the crumbs. Refrigerate the Napoleon cake for about 8 hours or overnight.

Notes

  • It is important that butter for the Napoleon dough is cold, so that the dough ends up flaky. Water and egg for the dough must also be cold.
  • If the dough is too dry when kneaded, add some more cold water. If the dough is too sticky, then add some flour.
  • Do not knead the dough for too long. It is quite sufficient to quickly knead it into a roughly homogeneous mass. Then the cake layers will taste really flaky in the end.
  • Take each piece of dough out of the fridge individually right before rolling it out, and leave the rest in the fridge as long as one is being worked with.
  • While the first pie crust is baking, roll out the second, bake it right after the first, and meanwhile roll out the third pie crust, and so on. Do not leave both the dough and the unrolled, unbaked pie crusts at room temperature for too long. To make the dough flaky after baking, do not let the butter in the dough melt before baking.
  • Instead of flour, use cornstarch for the cream.
  • The egg-flour mixture for the cake cream must not contain lumps when added to the hot milk.
  • Add the egg-flour mixture to the hot milk very slowly, in a thin stream, and be sure to stir constantly.
  • Stir the custard mixture for the cream thoroughly as it cooks, otherwise lumps may form.
  • Both the custard and the butter for the cream must be as warm as room temperature when stirred together to combine well into a homogeneous cream.
  • Note the detailed tips and tricks for DIY Russian Napoleon cake at the top of the post.