Napoleons With Chocolate Glaze
Once again, you might be asking, what the heck is a napoleon? (No, it’s not the vertically challenged French guy with dreams of ruling the world). A napoleon, when it comes to pastry, is 3 layers of puff pastry alternating with pastry cream (2 layers of pastry cream). Now, while doing a little research on them, there seemed to be differing opinions as to what type of pastry cream constituted a napoleon. Some sources said that if the pastry cream is frangipane, it is considered a napoleon. If regular pastry cream is used, it is considered a mille feuille (mill foy). Other sources didn’t make that delineation. The napoleon recipe we chose used regular pastry cream so we’re going with that!
In any case, it’s not the pastry cream that we were interested in making! The super star of this dessert is the puff pastry…at least for a baker! There was no thought of trying one of the “easy” recipes online that call for the frozen puff pastry. We were all in for making our own!
The recipe we used was from our Cook’s Illustrated Baking Book. I had to type it up so I hope I didn’t make any typos.
Ingredients
For the dough
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 cup ice water
- 3 sticks unsalted butter, chilled
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
For the pastry cream
- 2 vanilla bean or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups half and half
- 1/2 cup sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 5 large egg yolks
- 3 tablespoons corn starch
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter cut into 4 pieces
For the chocolate glaze
- 1 ounce bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
For the vanilla glaze
- 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 teaspoon milk
- 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method
1. FOR THE DOUGH: Process flour, sugar, and salt in food processor until combined, about 5 seconds. With processor running, add lemon juice, followed by 3/4 cup water, in slow steady stream. Add remaining 1/4 cup water as needed, 1 tablespoon at a time, until dough comes together and no floury bits remain.
2. Turn dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and flatten into a 6 inch square. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour.
3. FOR THE BUTTER SQUARE: Lay butter sticks side by side on sheet of parchment paper. Sprinkle flour over the butter and cover with second sheet of parchment. Gently pound butter with rolling pin until butter is softened and flour is fully incorporated, then roll it into an 8 inch square. Wrap butter square in plastic and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour.
4. Roll chilled dough into 11 inch square on lightly floured counter. Place chilled butter square diagonally in center of dough. Fold corners of dough up over butter square so that corners meet in the middle and pinch dough seams to seal.
5. Using rolling pin, gently tap dough, starting from center and working outward, until square becomes larger and butter begins to soften. Gently roll dough into 14 inch square, dusting with extra flour as needed to prevent sticking. Fold dough into thirds like business letter, then fold that rectangle in thirds to form square. Wrap dough in plastic and let rest in refrigerator for 2 hours.
6. Repeat step 5 twice and let dough rest in refrigerator for 2 hours more before using. (The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 1 month.)
1. FOR THE PASTRY CREAM: Cut vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Using tip of paring knife, scrape out seeds. Bring vanilla bean and seeds, half and half, 6 tablespoons of sugar, and salt to simmer in medium saucepan over medium high heat, stirring occasionally.
2. Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks, cornstarch, and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar together in medium bowl until smooth. Slowly whisk 1 cup of simmering half and half mixture into egg mixture to temper, then slowly whisk tempered egg mixture into remaining half and half mixture. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until pastry cream is thickened and few bubbles burst on the surface, about 30 seconds. Off heat, whisk in butter.
3. Remove vanilla bean and transfer pastry cream to clean bowl. Lay plastic wrap directly on surface of pastry cream and refrigerate until cold and set, about 3 hours. (Pastry cream can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)
1. COOKING PASTRY: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Cut the dough in half. Roll dough into 16” x 12” rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick, between 2 lightly floured sheets of parchment paper. Remove top sheet of parchment and prick pastry with fork every 2 inches.
2. Replace top sheet of parchment and slide dough onto rimmed baking sheet. Place second rimmed baking sheet on top of dough and weight baking sheet with large oven safe dish. Bake pastry until cooked through and lightly golden, 50 minutes to 1 hour, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking.
3. Remove weight, top baking sheet, and top sheet of parchment and continue to bake pastry until golden brown, 5 to 10 minutes longer. Let pastry cool completely on baking sheet, about 1 hour. (Pastry will shrink slightly.)
4. Cut cooled pastry in half lengthwise with serrated knife and trim edges as necessary to make them straight. Cut each pastry half crosswise into 3 rectangles, then cut each rectangle crosswise into 3 small rectangles (you will have 18 rectangles). (Puff pastry rectangles can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 1 day.)
5. FOR THE CHOCOLATE GLAZE: Microwave chocolate at 50 percent power for 15 seconds; stir chocolate, add milk, and continue heating for 10 seconds; stir until smooth. Whisk in confectioner’s sugar until smooth.
6. FOR THE VANILLA GLAZE: Whisk sugar, milk, and vanilla together in bowl until smooth.
7. GLAZE PASTRY: Spread chocolate glaze evenly over top of 6 rectangles of pastry and lay them on wire rack set over sheet of parchment (for easy clean up). Drizzle thin stream of vanilla glaze crosswise over chocolate glaze. Run tip of small knife or toothpick lengthwise through icing to make feathered design. Let icing set, about 20 minutes.
8. FOR THE FILLING: Meanwhile, spread about 2 1/2 tablespoons of pastry cream evenly over 6 more rectangles of pastry. Gently top each with one of the remaining 6 rectangles of pastry and spread remaining pastry cream evenly over tops. Top with glazed pastry rectangles and serve. (Glazed and assembled napoleons can be stored at room temperature for up to 4 hours.)
Our Experience
First, a couple notes regarding the ingredients we chose to use that departed from the recipe. We used Ideal sweetener for the sugar throughout other than the glaze. The chocolate is the only thing that had actual sugar in it (and a little dusting for the decoration). For the flour, we went with 2 cups all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat pastry. We didn’t use half and half because we wanted to substitute some almond milk into the recipe so we used 1 cup heavy whipping cream and 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Even though this was a new recipe (that’s the whole point of this year), we made the ingredient substitutions even though it was a risk. Vanilla extract was used instead of a vanilla bean. Finally, we had a different (less sweet) idea for the top. We decided we would sprinkle a little powdered sugar over the top and then drizzle them with the chocolate. We did not make the vanilla glaze.
At the outset, we knew that with the chill times, this dough was going to take a lo……..ng time. It wasn’t technically difficult, just time consuming.
The recipe specified using a food processor but my processor is just too small to make doughs so I always use my Kitchenaid mixer for doughs. In this instance, the paddle attachment was our choice. The dough went together very easily. It seemed a little “lumpier” than those we have seen on cooking shows and chalked that up to the whole wheat flour. Once it was mixed together, we shaped it and put it in the refrigerator to chill.
With the dough chilling, we went to work on the butter. After watching several seasons of The Great British Baking Show contestants pounding butter with their rolling pins, it was now our turn. Cold butter is harder than you think!! The rolling pin kept leaving long curved gullies in the butter that we didn’t think we wanted. So, it was time to try a new tool. Enter the meat tenderizer…the flat side of course. It worked like a charm! Now, I must say, if you have some pent up tension, it’s not a bad activity for relieving a little stress. The flour that had to be worked into the butter was the tricky part of flattening the butter. It was difficult to work in and keep the 3 sticks together as one. The flour kept them from sticking to each other. In the end, we just overlapped them and figured that once we started working on the layering of the dough, it wouldn’t matter. Once the butter was pounded out, it went into the refrigerator to chill too.
After the required chilling was completed, it was time to roll the dough out and encase the butter with it.
Once the dough was large enough, we placed the butter in it and folded it over to fully encase the butter. I will say that the butter seemed a bit too big for the dough as it was rolled out, so, we might make the butter smaller next time. The dough was already pretty thin and we didn’t want stretch it too far and put a bunch of holes in it.
With the butter encased in dough, the next step was to roll it out and fold it in thirds and then fold that in thirds and refrigerate, again.
While the dough chilled, it was time to work on the pastry cream. The difficult part of a pastry cream is tempering the eggs so they don’t cook too quickly leaving you with itty, bitty scrambled eggs that give the custard a grainy texture. To temper the eggs you heat the liquid, in this case milk, and then slowly add some of the hot milk to the eggs to bring them up to temperature. Once you have added the milk to the eggs, you then slowly add the egg & milk mixture to the rest of the milk in the pan. We followed the recipe as written other than the substitutions discussed above and it was a success. It is sweet, but not too sweet. (If you haven’t figured out, I don’t like overly sweet things.) And no scrambled eggs! We’ll see how the sugar substitute does. They are known to crystallize after they cool.
The next two steps involved rolling out the dough again and then doing the double triple fold again. (The folding was done a total of 3 times.)
That was the end of our day, as planned, since the dough takes 7 hours to make and then another 1+ to bake.
Day two started with rolling out the dough and baking it. Aubrey informed me that the napoleon recipe used only half the dough from the recipe. So, we cut it in half and starting looking for something else to make with it once these were completed. In order to get the 16″ x 12″ rectangle, I put some tape on the edge of the countertop to use as a ruler. That worked well since the dough was on parchment paper and it was easy to slide it up next to the tape. We didn’t have a baking sheet with sides that was big enough so we used 2 cookie sheets as directed, one to weigh the dough down. We cooked it for 50 minutes and then another 8 after taking off the weight. We weren’t sure how brown it should be but it looked done.
The chocolate glaze was easy to assemble and we started on that once the pastry had cooled. We used almond milk and a mixture of real sugar and Ideal substitute. With the chocolate glaze complete, we were ready to assemble. As I started cutting the dough, I realized that the instructions weren’t easily figured out at this point. We could figure out what “lengthwise” meant but, what did they mean by “crosswise”. I just decided that it must have meant the opposite direction of lengthwise or perpendicular to the longest side. That’s what we went with anyway. As I was cutting it, the center looked a bit raw (I could hear Paul Hollywood saying it). We decided to pop it back in the oven to cook a little bit longer, about 15 more minutes. We made sure each one was brown and crispy.
much off because we weren’t making these for anyone but ourselves.
We matched up the 3 pieces for each napoleon because as you cut it, some pieces will match up better than others…especially if your rectangle is a bit rounded on some edges and you don’t want to cut a few inches off just to square it up. Of course, we still had some scraps and they were crispy, flaky, buttery goodness!
would be a different size. That would not be ideal for competition, but we didn’t care
and didn’t want to cut off several inches just to start with a perfect rectangle.
With the 3 pieces figured out for each one, we took the smallest ones (because they would be on top) and dusted them with powdered sugar and then chocolate glaze. They were pretty, even without the feathering. Once the tops were done, we filled a pastry bag with the pastry cream and piped it out rather than spread it. My big round tip seems to be missing, so I just used the coupling without a tip on it at all…worked just fine. Our napoleons have 2 layers of pastry cream and 3 layers of puff pastry. They turned out very pretty and rather fancy for our household. Oh, yeah, they were delicious too!!
assembled and eaten before we even got the camera out.)
What we liked.
This week we had 5 out of 5 thumbs up! Who wouldn’t love a puff pastry? It is very good and it is a nice flaky, buttery base for just about anything you could think of. We also loved the pastry cream and chocolate glaze too. The sweetness and flavoring was very balanced, nothing overly sweet there. None of the components was terribly difficult just time consuming…which leads me to:
What we would change.
As good as the puff pastry was, it wasn’t THAT much better than a store bought version and it was very time consuming. I’d make them again with the premade puff pastry and have no regrets. We might change the sweetener to Splenda?? While the pastry cream tasted great and had a good mouth feel in the dessert, it looked grainy. If eaten alone, you could feel little crystals as soon as it hit your mouth but then dissolved almost instantly. There was no crunch of crystals at all. Again, it was unnoticeable in the dessert. As far as the pastry cream goes, if you were crunched for time you could even use a store bought pudding (gasp!). Finally, as they are very difficult to cut without the pastry cream squishing out all over the plate (even Martha Stewart mentioned it on her website), I think I would make them smaller, possibly bite size so they don’t have to be cut at all. Granted, that may not be a napoleon anymore (?), but they’d taste like one.
What we learned.
We were really worried about the dough being affected with whole wheat flour, and we were pleasantly surprised that it didn’t seem to affect it at all. The same goes with substituting some almond milk for regular milk. We didn’t experience any issues due to that switch. For the topping, the chocolate glaze didn’t want to stick to the powdered sugar so the super thin drizzles would roll up into little balls or disappear altogether as they hit the sugar. So, if you want the same look we had (or better), I would suggest the drizzle first and then dust with the powdered sugar. The powdered sugar will probably dissolve/disappear on the chocolate and give it virtually the same appearance and you won’t lose all those wispy super thin drizzles that are what the drizzling is all about. And, finally, I love fruit on desserts, so, this one could easily have a row of berries on the top (in my opinion) and a bit of lemon oil in the pastry cream…just sayin’.
Until next week, Happy Baking!
photos could be taken. That’s a good sign!
BONUS:
Remember we still had half the puff pastry left over? Turns out we also had about half the pastry cream and chocolate glaze leftover too! So, we could have made 6 more if we had had the time. Rather than taking over an hour to bake the pastry for the napoleons, we decided to make a “bande de cream”, which took 18 minutes to bake. And, I must say, without the weight on the dough, it really puffed up! (sniff, sniff, tearing up over here). (Okay, I might have to take back the “I’d use store bought” comment above. There’s just a sense of pride when you see something you’ve made from scratch that looks like it is supposed to look!)
(oops), but, check out that puff and those layers!!
Not too bad for leftovers!