Classic Soviet Napoleon cake

Step-by-step preparation

Cooking time: 1 day

1. STEP 1

   

   How to make a classic Napoleon cake? Prepare the necessary ingredients for making the cakes. Sift the flour through a sieve to saturate it with oxygen. You can take 15-20% sour cream. The butter should be hard. You can freeze it a little in the freezer.

2. STEP 2

   

   Pour almost all the flour into the bowl for preparing the dough (leave a little for sprinkling) and add the chopped butter. You can grind it in different ways - finely chop it with a knife, chop it with a chopper or grate it.

3. STEP 3

   

   Then mix flour and butter. It should look like this.

4. STEP 4

   

   Now add egg, vodka, cold water, sour cream and salt to the dough.

5. STEP 5

   

   Knead the dough quickly. Cold butter should not have time to melt. There is no need to knead the dough for a long time. It is only enough for it to form into a bun. At this stage, add the remaining flour. You may need a little more or less flour. The finished dough should not stick to your hands. Wrap the dough in cling film and let it rest for 30 minutes, then put it in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

6. STEP 6

   

   While the dough is resting, prepare everything you need to make two types of cream.

7. STEP 7

   

   To prepare the custard, pour 2/3 of the milk into a non-stick pan and add sugar. Place on the fire and bring to a boil. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

8. STEP 8

   

   Mix the remaining milk with eggs and flour. Add cognac to the cream. You can use a mixer so that there are no lumps of flour left.

9. STEP 9

   

   Pour hot milk into the egg mixture, stirring. Then return everything to the heat and bring until the first bubbles appear. The cream must be stirred constantly so that it does not start to burn. To be safe, you can cook the cream in a water bath. The cream will thicken during cooking.

10. STEP 10

    

    Remove the pan from the heat and add the butter. It will melt. Immediately stir it into the cream. Cover the finished cream with a lid or cling film and cool.

11. STEP 11

    

    Divide the rested dough into 10 cake layers.

12. STEP 12

    

    Roll out each cake on parchment and cut out a circle. I have a circle of 22 cm. Prick the cake with a fork so that bubbles do not appear during baking. Do not remove the trimmings, but bake them along with the cake. They will be useful for sprinkling the cake. Bake the cakes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 15 minutes each (approximately). The finished cakes should be golden brown.

13. STEP 13

    

    To prepare sour cream, you can beat heavy sour cream with powdered sugar, or you can simply mix thick sour cream with powdered sugar. I just mixed it up. The mixture is a bit runny, but it will soak the cake well.

14. STEP 14

    

    Assembling the cake. Grease 2 cake layers with custard, the third cake layer with a little sour cream and custard. So collect the whole cake. Do not grease the last cake. But leave a little cream for the final coating. Press the cake down with something heavy. You can cover it with a plate and put a liter jar of water. Leave it in the kitchen for an hour. The cakes will become softer in the warmth. Then put the cake in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours so that it soaks a little.

15. STEP 15

    

    Chop the remaining trimmings. You can crush them with a masher.

16. STEP 16

    

    Cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining cream. Sprinkle with crumbs. And put it back in the refrigerator. I usually place the cake in a cake box so that all the moisture goes into soaking the cake layers. And I soak the cake for a day. I like a well-drenched, soft Napoleon.

17. STEP 17

    

    Before serving, you can decorate the finished cake a little to your liking. It is perfectly soaked, the cakes are soft and very tender.

18. STEP 18

    

    Enjoy your tea!

Comments on the recipe

tank0412

12.11.2023

4.8

Very tasty cake!

Gulnara

12.11.2023

4.7

In general, I’ve never been a fan of this cake, but my husband loves it. I decided to cook it according to this recipe, and to my surprise, I really liked it! The cake turned out very tender, tasty, and very beautiful, due to the walnuts sprinkled on top, plus I added hazelnuts to everything, since my husband loves them! But unfortunately, the cake is very high in calories, you can’t eat a lot... you can only look at your husband with envy...