A Napoleon pastry is a layered flakey pastry with vanilla pastry cream, sweet whipped cream and raspberry jam. It is the Swedish take on the traditional French Mille-Feuille pastry. Its super relish, easy to make and looks like a top pastry chef in a five star restaurant has made it. great for impressing anyone for any fancy dinner party! Or even just for yourself 😉 

Here’s how you make it!

INGREDIENTS  

Pastry Base

METHOD

Pastry –

1. Blend the flour, salt and butter together so they start to blend in and grip to each other. Add water, egg yolks and lemon juice/vinegar.
2. Mix everything together with your hands and work the dough so that it all ‘just’ sticks together, having a few lumps of butter seen in a good thing! Cover the dough in plastic wrap and place into the fridge and let rest for about 10-20 min.
3. Once rested , roll out the dough and fold in the 3-fold method twice, so fold in from one side to the middle and then from the left side in.  Wrap in plastic wrap again and let it rest in the fridge for another 10-20 min. Repeat this twice.
4. Once rested the final time, roll out the dough to about 2 cm thickness and slice in half. Bake on two separate trays.
5. Before baking, let the dough rest on the trays fro about 10-15 min, and during this tie take a fork and push the fork through the dough all over, so you create small little holes, which will help the pastry cook through neatly.  Then bake in the oven at 225 C, until lightly golden brown. Take the trays out and let cool completely before piping in the fillings.

Vanilla pastry Cream –

1. Mix together the milk, the vanilla pods and 50 g of the sugar in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil and then take off the heat and let it stand for 5-10 min to cool off.
2. Take the vanilla pods out and scrape off the vanilla and place them back into the saucepan. Mix around a little so they blend in nicely.
3. in a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, the remaining sugar and the corn starch, until fluffy in texture. Then pour this into the vanilla/milk mixture. Simmer over medium heat until everything has blended in nicely then let it cook for a couple of minutes.
4. Take off the heat and whisk in butter. Then pour it through a sieve into a clean bowl. Let it stand tills it cools down.

The rest of the fillings –

1. Whip up your cream with two teaspoons of sugar, and place into a pastry bag.
2. Take your raspberry jam/preserve and blend a little so that it loosens up and is easy to spread.
3. Take a little more of the raspberry jam and mix it in with the icing sugar and lukewarm water. Add a little pink colour of you like to make it stand out a little more.

Assembly –

1. Cut the pasty in rectangles, and take 3 rectangles.
2. Pipe out the cooled vanilla pastry cream on the first layer
3. Then place the second layer of pastry on top of the pastry cream
4. Pipe out the whipped cream, I usually do this twice as I like a lot of cream!
5. Then take your final pastry layer and spread the raspberry jam on one side, thinly and evenly.
6. Place the jam side down on the whipped cream and then take your icing sugar mixture and spread that on top

Your Napoleon Pastry is done and ready to be devoured!