Napoleons

The napoleons are one of my favorite puff pastry treats to make. A napoleon is traditionally consists of a thousand layers, but this one is only about 432 layers. Also traditionally this is a super great way to use puff pastry scraps. The original way of forming napleons are three layers of puff pastry dough and two layers of diplomat cream. Some people like to use fruit for layers like raspberries or strawberries, but I like to be plain and make it the original way. Every napoleon consists of the fondant icing and chocolate drizzle. I'm actually gonna teach everyone how to make Napoleons, there so easy and simple to make in just a few steps. 

1.  The first step is to take a piece of blitz dough and shape it to the size of  a half sheet pan, and must be rolled out to the thickness of 1/8 of an inch.  This puff pastry sheet must be docked all over the puff pastry so that way air can circulate though. And don't be afraid to run the docker a couple of times through the dough the more wholes the better. Before putting it in the oven put it in the freezer with a half sheet pan on top and half of a parchment paper for at least 10-15 minutes. 

2. The next step is to take the napoleon sheet out of the freezer and bake it (with the pan on top) for about a half an hour in the convection oven or until dark, and it must be dark. The darker the sheet the better the quality of napoleon. Once you can see some colorization in the product you can take the top pan off. If you take it off to soon, then the sheet could bake very unevenly, and you want an even sheet. 

3. After you take the puff pastry out of the oven you wanna cut it into a long rectangle of 15"x10", and the cut the rectangle into three equal strips of 10"x5". next you would want to figure out which layer would be good to make as your bottom to support the napoleon in place, your middle, and your top layer. once you have figure this out and your diplomat cream (for your cream layers)  is made and ready, then you can start layering  the diplomat cream to your napoleon. 

 

4. What I used to spread the Diplomat cream was a 823 star tip and loaded a pastry bag full of the diplomat cream. Now you would want to make nice round edges at the edges of the puff pastry layers, but nothing too sloppy looking either. It's just enough to show designs. And you would do this for two of the layers. Once this part is done and before you put the fondant on top set this in the freezer so it can come together and become enough to chill it. At this stage this would be the point if you wanted to add different types of fruits for the layers like raspberries or strawberries.

 

5. At this time you should have your simple syrup/fondant mixture prepare. Take your napoleon out of the freezer and put on a cutting board. Take a piping bag and pour your fondant mixture onto the napoleon and spread with your small off set spatula. make sure it is evenly spread. Quickly before it dries and hardens, drizzle the chocolate back and forth across the napoleon. Now before that hardens  take the back of your pairing knife and draw lines across up and down to create zig zag lines up and down. Stick it back in the freezer to harden.

 

6. To cut your napoleons, make sure it is frozen to begin with. Use a pairing knife to trim off the edges to make it look neater. Dip your chef's knife into warm water to make clean cuts into your napoleons. Make six even cuts and don't forget to use a paper underneath when serving. Enjoy!