This is the treat I always chose from the bakery when I had the chance – the Napoleon pastry, it is the cheat’s version but simple and yummy. Growing up in New Zealand, a country with dairy cows on every hillside meant whipped fresh cream was on everything. The cream was often lightly sugared but it was there to offset the sweetness of the other parts of a dessert, in this case the berry jam and icing. Yes, the icing would stick to the white paper bag it was popped into but that was half the fun, using your finger to remove every last bit of it!
Napoleon Pastries with Berry Frosting
It is not much of a recipe I must admit, but there is joy in making something easy that tastes glorious.
- Using thawed store-bought pre-rolled puff pastry, cut into rectangles of desired size, those pictured were smallish perhaps 2 1/2″ by 1″ approx.
- Place on a a tray lined with baking paper and cook at 400 F until golden brown, always watch this as they can turn from golden to coal colored very quickly.
- Remove from oven and when still a bit warm use a sharp knife to cut each rectangle in half. Try and use the layers of the puffed pastry to guide you.
- Cool completely
- Spread the base part of the cooked pastry with berry jam/preserve and then pipe whipped cream on top of this.
- Place the other half of the pastry on top like a lid and ice with berry icing. This is made by mixing seedless or strained berry preserve with powdered sugar, squeeze of lemon and a tablespoon of butter per cup of the sugar. it needs to be quite thick to not dribble everywhere so always start with the sugar and butter and then add the preserve and juice very slowly until you have mixed a lump free thick frosting.
For a different version swap our the berry jam with lemon curd. So good too.
