What with my obsessive compulsive following of the Oscar Pistorius saga this week, I almost forgot to finish the Russian challenge blog. RIP Reeva.
The dessert on the evening of my Russian Plov night was this Napoleon Cake with a lot of short cuts. The original cake is of course made with home made dough but us mere mortals with limited time look for recipes that work fast, very fast…..
The recipe is from http://www.russianbites.com and is simply layers of puff pastry with custard creme (creme patisserie) in between.
Bake squares (4 or more) of puff pastry at 180 C and cool down.
Make custard as follows: ( I would not use store bought custard as you need a thick custard).
1 1/4 cups full cream milk
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8th cup flour
2T plus 2 t cornstarch
In a small saucepan, warm the milk over low heat until it is just hot enough to steam. While the milk is warming, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and cornstarch until the mixture is completely smooth.
Once the milk is steaming, add half of it, whisking constantly, to the egg mixture. Add the milk and eggs back into the hot milk, continue stirring, and heat it for 1-2 minutes, until the custard is very thick. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract, and chill before filling pastry.
I added grated orange peel for an orangy taste and flaked puff pastry on the top layer.
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