Classic cake "Napoleon"

One of the most delicious and favorite desserts in my family is Napoleon cake. Its preparation cannot be called simple and fast, but the result is certainly worth the effort. The cake turns out to be amazingly tasty, with thin cakes and the most delicate butter-custard.

Ingredients

• For cakes:
• Flour - 750 g
• Butter (cold) or margarine - 400 g
• Eggs - 2 pcs.
• Cold water - 150 ml
• Vodka or cognac - 3 tbsp. l.
• Vinegar 9% - 1 tbsp. l.
• Salt - a pinch
• For custard:
• Milk - 1 l
• Eggs - 4 pcs.
• Flour - 100 g
• Sugar - 300 g
• Vanilla sugar - 20 g
• Butter - 300 g (for whipping) + 50 g (in hot cream)

Directions

1. Cooking cakes. In a glass, mix cold water, vinegar and vodka.
2. In another bowl, lightly whisk the eggs with a pinch of salt.
3. Pour the liquid into the eggs and mix thoroughly.
4. Sift the flour on the table, put butter or margarine cut into small cubes on top of it.
5. With a large knife, chop the butter with flour into small crumbs.
6. Then we collect this crumb in a hill, and in the center we make a recess, pour in the egg mixture.
7. Quickly knead the puff pastry.
8. Divide the dough into 12 parts and roll into balls.
9. We put the resulting balls of dough on a plate and wrap them in cling film so that they do not weather. Then we remove the dough in the refrigerator for 1-1.5 hours so that it cools well.
10. In the meantime, prepare the cream for the Napoleon cake. In a saucepan, combine flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, eggs.
11. Blend with a whisk into a homogeneous mixture.
12. Add milk little by little and mix well with a whisk until smooth.
13. We put the pan with the contents on a small fire, continuously stir the mass with a whisk, especially at the bottom of the pan, to avoid the formation of flour lumps. As soon as the custard thickens and begins to boil, turn off the heat and remove from the stove.
14. Next, add butter (50 g) to the hot custard mass and stir until it is completely dissolved.
15. We cover the cream with cling film so that the film lies directly on its surface. In this form, leave the custard to cool to room temperature!
16. We bake cakes. When the dough has cooled well, take one ball of dough and roll it into a circle directly on parchment paper.
17. On top of the dough we put a plate or a mold with a diameter of 22-24 cm and cut out a circle, do not remove the dough trimmings, leave everything together on a baking sheet.
18. We prick the dough with a fork and bake in an oven preheated to 200-220 ℃ for 5-7 minutes.
19. Cakes for Napoleon are baked very quickly, the main thing is to make sure that they do not burn. While one cake is baking, quickly roll out the next one. Thus, we bake all 12 cakes along with scraps. We do not throw away the trimmings - we will need them to decorate the cake.
20. Beat soft butter with a mixer until a lush light mass appears, without stopping beating, gradually add the custard cooled to room temperature and beat until smooth. Butter cream for the cake "Napoleon" is ready.
21. We collect the cake "Napoleon". First you need to set aside a little cream to lubricate the top and sides of the cake.
22. We put the first cake on the dish, grease it with the prepared cream, cover with the second cake and collect the whole cake in this way. Then lightly press on the cake from above so that the cream is well distributed.
23. Lubricate the sides and surface of the cake with reserved cream.
24. To decorate, we transfer the remaining cakes (trimmings) into a bag and use a rolling pin to grind them into crumbs.
25. Sprinkle the resulting crumbs on the sides and surface of the cake.
26. We send the cake to the refrigerator for several hours, and best of all at night, for impregnation.
27. After the specified time, we take the cake out of the refrigerator.
28. We cut it into pieces and we can please ourselves and our loved ones with an amazingly delicious Napoleon cake.
29. The classic Napoleon cake is ready. Bon appetit and happy baking