Russian-Style Napoleon

When it comes to sweets, I'm much more of a savory girl myself. I'd usually choose the bag of salty chips over the cupcake, but there's something about Napoleon that I can't resist. The Napoleon I usually eat is from local Russian food stores, but of course every culture has embraced this cake (with good reason.) Recently, my mom has started to make her own simple version of Russian-style Napoleon which is what I have for you here today. It's simple to make, as are a lot of the recipes I post, so I highly recommend trying it!

Exhibit A: Layers of cream upon cookies upon cream upon more cookies.

Ingredients

1 pack Kedem tea biscuits
1 large egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup cold milk
1 tbsp flour
Vanilla extract
Jameson Irish Whiskey (doesn't specifically have to be Jameson)
2 tbsp butter

Procedure

To make cream for Napoleon: 

1) In a medium sized bowl, whisk together sugar and egg.

2) Add the flour and 1/3 of your cold milk, and continue to whisk.

3) Boil the remaining 2/3 cup of milk in a medium-sized sauce pan. When the milk is boiling, add the sugar mixture from the previous steps and simmer until the mixture thickens. Be sure to constantly stir the mixture, but do not let it boil. The mixture thickens fast so this step should only take a few minutes.

4) Remove your creamy mixture from the heat, and add a few drops of vanilla extract and a bit of whiskey for additional flavor. Add your butter and mix until the butter melts.


To make Napoleon layers:

1) Lay out a 3x3 base of cookies in a rectangular dish and spread the cream over it. Repeat this step for two more layers of cookies, making a total of three layers. You should have used 27 cookies. The resulting piece of cake will be about 8'' by 5".

2) To make the cake more decorative, crush 2-3 biscuits that remain in your pack and spread the crumbs over the top layer of cream.

3) Let  the cake cool in the fridge for a few hours before serving. For aesthetic purposes, you can trim the uneven edges of the cookies, but this is not necessary.

See--piece of cake! (Hah.)


~Alyssa