Pastry layered with homemade custard topped with icing and chocolate. Everything good in life!
Some major stress eating has gone on here! AP tests have me eating baked goods like there is no tomorrow to save them for. I came home after my Calculus test, devoured three of these, and then sprawled on the couch and stared off into space for 20 minutes….brain recovered!
Whenever I go into a fancy bakery, I always debate over a napoleon or an éclair… the tough choices in life…am I right? Is it ridiculous that I find those inconsequential choices strenuous and things like choosing a college just seem obvious? Well clearly my priorities are out of whack!
Well enough with my issues. Today I chose napoleons! I made several batches of them to get the perfect ratio of custard to pastry. For my first batch the pastry was too puffy, so all the custard oozed out the sides when I cut them. But don’t worry, I attacked the issue by altering two factors… 1. Cut the pastry in half so it wasn’t as thick and 2. Made them individual sized so no cutting was necessary.
Please don’t be intimidated by the length of this recipe. It’s a lot of steps, but a lot of it is waiting time, so you can spread out making these over 2 days if you don’t have time. I made the custard one day and then baked the pastry and assembled the next day.
So first you gotta whip up the custard. This is more time consuming than grabbing the box off the shelf at the store, but it’s worth it! You are going to make a milk mixture on the stove and then pour a little of that into some egg yolks to temper them and then pour the eggs into the milk mixture. “Tempering?” you ask. Tempering is necessary for eggs because if you just pour the eggs into the hot liquid, they are going to be shocked and turn into scrambled eggs… yuck! A little of this will happen anyways, so after you’re completely done cooking the custard you’ll run the custard through a sieve to get any of the solidified cooked egg out.
Next you’ll put the bowl in a water bath. To make a water bath, fill a large bowl or bucket halfway with ice and then cover with cold water. Let the custard cool in the water bath for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. This will cool your custard more slowly and gently than just shoving it in the fridge. Once cool, remove the custard from the water bath, put plastic wrap right on filling, so it doesn’t form a film layer and refrigerate for at least one hour.
Since we didn’t cheat on the custard, we get to on the pastry! Actually making the pastry is quite a lengthy process which is good sometimes, but the custard is really the star of this dessert anyways. So thaw one package of puff pastry (2 sheets) according to the package directions (picture 1 and 2). Unfold the sheets on parchment paper on a baking sheet (picture 3) and cut along the fold marks(picture 4). Now cut each strip into 6 more pieces and spread them out on the baking sheet (picture 5 and 6). So you’ll end up with 18 pieces of about 1x 3 inch pieces of pastry. Prick the pastry all over with a fork (picture 7). Put another sheet of parchment paper on top of the pastry and sit another baking sheet on top of the pastry (picture 8). This keeps it from puffing too much while baking. Bake for 15-17 minutes at 400°F. Remove the top baking sheet and let the pastry bake until golden brown, about 3-4 more minutes (picture 9).
While the pastry is cooling, make the glaze. Mix powdered sugar, vanilla, and hot tap water together. The glaze needs to be thick enough that it doesn’t drip down the sides of the pastry. A way to check the thickness is to run a spoon through the glaze in the bowl and the track from the spoon shouldn’t fill in for “1 mississippi”.
To assemble, whip some heavy cream and fold it into the custard to make it thicker. Now cut each of the pastry pieces and cut it in half so they aren’t so thick. Take three of the the thin pastry pieces smear custard on one and stack it with another, smear more custard on that one and place the final pastry piece on top of that one. Now take the glaze and smear it on top of the pastry.
While the glaze is still wet drizzle chocolate with a spoon or a piping bag in neat lines back and forth over the pastry. For the chocolate I recommend using Baker’s unsweetened chocolate. It is thinner when it melts than chocolate chips are, so it’s easier to drizzle. Before the chocolate dries run a toothpick perpendicular to the chocolate strips through the glaze to get that bakery style pattern.
… and voilà!
Happy baking!
- 1½ egg yolks*
- ¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- Pinch of salt
- 1½ cups milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 Tablespoon butter, salted
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 1 package of frozen puff pastry (2 sheets)
- 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
- ⅛ teaspoon vanilla
- 1½ - 2 Tablespoons hot tap water
- ½ - 1 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted**
- In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks until smooth.
- In a medium pot, combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a saucepan and then gradually add in the milk.
- Cook the milk mixture for about 10 minutes on medium-high heat or until it starts to boil. Let it boil for a minute and remove from heat.
- Add a little of the hot milk mixture to the eggs to temper them.
- Pour the egg into the milk saucepan and cook over low heat for 1 minute or until the mixture barely begins to bubble. Remove from heat.
- Add in the butter and vanilla.
- Strain the custard through a fine sieve to get any of the egg that cooked too much.
- Put the bowl with the custard in it in a water bath. (To make a water bath, fill a large bowl halfway with ice and then cover with cold water.)
- Let the custard cool in the water bath for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Once cool, remove the custard from the water bath, put plastic wrap right on the filling and refrigerate for at least one hour.
- Thaw one package of puff pastry (2 sheets) according to the package directions.
- Unfold the sheets on parchment paper on a baking sheet and cut along the fold marks (into 3 pieces).
- Cut each strip into 6 more pieces and spread them out on the baking sheet.
- Prick the pastry all over with a fork.
- Put another sheet of parchment paper on top of the pastry and sit another baking sheet on top of the pastry.
- Bake for 15-17 minutes at 400°F. Remove the top baking sheet and let the pastry bake until golden brown, about 2-4 more minutes.
- Let cool.
- Mix powdered sugar, vanilla, and hot tap water together. The glaze needs to be thick enough that it doesn’t drip down the sides of the pastry so add more powdered sugar to thicken it or more water to thin it out.
- Whip heavy cream until you have whipped cream and fold it into the custard to make it thicker.
- Cut each of the pastry pieces in half thickness wise.
- Take three of the the thin pastry pieces smear custard on one and stack it with another, smear more custard on that one and place the final pastry piece on top of that one.
- Smear the glaze on top of the pastry.
- While the glaze is still wet drizzle chocolate with a spoon or a piping bag in neat lines back and forth over the pastry. Before the chocolate dries run a toothpick perpendicular to the chocolate strips through the glaze.
- Voilà!
** I recommend Baker's because it melts the best.
Custard recipe from Teens Cook Dessert
Glaze recipe from Diana’s Desserts
Needin’ some more bakery style French treats? Check out my recipe for French Macarons!
These are very nice Napoleons!
Thank you!