Napoleonka: Polish cream slice with a thick custard between two sheets of puff pastry
The bakery pastry that turns out better at home, because the custard is fresh and truly thick: two sheets of ready-made puff pastry baked flat under a second tray, and more than two centimetres of custard from milk, egg yolks, flour and butter between them. A few hours in the fridge, icing sugar, a serrated knife. Twelve generous squares.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Pastry baking 40 min
- Custard 20 min
- Assembly 10 min
- Setting in the fridge 240 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneBake the pastry flat
Heat the oven to 200 °C. Unroll a pastry sheet onto a lined tray, prick it densely with a fork, cover with a second sheet of paper and weight it with a second tray. Bake 15 minutes, remove the top tray and paper, bake 5 minutes more until golden. Repeat with the second sheet (about 40 minutes of baking for both). Cool on a rack.
Ingredients: 2 pcs puff pastry · 2 tbsp icing sugar
TipWeighting with a second tray is the whole secret: the pastry stays flat and compact instead of puffing into uneven pillows that shatter when cut.
Pricked, under a second tray, 200 °CCool the sheets
Both sheets should be golden, crisp and completely cold before they meet the custard. If they are taller than 1 cm, press them gently with your palm while still warm.
Two flat golden sheetsMake the yolk paste
Pour off 300 ml of the 1.5 litres of milk. Whisk the yolks with the sugar, vanilla sugar and salt, add the flour and potato starch, pour in the reserved cold milk and whisk into a smooth paste without lumps.
Ingredients: 1500 ml milk · 6 pcs egg yolks · 200 g sugar · 3 tbsp vanilla sugar · 75 g plain flour · 75 g potato starch · 150 g butter · 1 pinch salt
Yolks, sugar, both flours, cold milkCook the custard
Bring the rest of the milk to the boil in a heavy-based pot. Pour in the paste in a thin stream, whisking vigorously the whole time. Cook over low heat 3–4 minutes, stirring across the bottom, until the custard is very thick: the whisk leaves clear tracks. It must come to the boil, or it tastes of flour and won't set.
TipThicker than pudding: this custard has to stand in a layer more than 2 cm thick. If it still runs off the spoon after 4 minutes, cook it longer.
Thick, glossy, the whisk leaves tracksAdd the butter
Take off the heat and stir in the butter in cubes until melted and the custard is silky. Butter gives flavour and makes the chilled custard hold its shape when cut.
Butter into the hot custardAssemble the slice
Lay one sheet in the tin (or in a frame of baking paper). Spread all the hot custard over it, level with a spatula to the edges, cover with the second sheet and press very lightly. Spread the custard at once, while warm: cold, it won't spread smoothly.
Pastry, all the custard, pastryChill and cut
Cover and refrigerate 4 hours, ideally overnight. Dust with icing sugar and cut with a serrated knife in a sawing motion, without pressing, into 12 squares. Keeps 2 days in the fridge; the pastry softens with time.
After four hours, a serrated knife
Before you start
With whipped cream
A layer of 300 ml whipped cream (30%) on the cold custard before the top sheet goes on: a taller slice with a lighter taste, as many bakeries make it.
Thinner, on two trays
The same custard spread over two slices from four pastry sheets: lower, crisper, for a bigger party.
Soft pastry, custard oozing out
Chilled too briefly, or the custard too thin. Chill overnight, and cook the custard until really thick; add the butter only off the heat.
