Homemade cake for February 23 — «Napoleon» recipe with photos step by step

In a small cup, mix ice water, 6% vinegar, egg and a little salt. We put it in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. The mixture should be very cold.

Sift wheat flour . Rub frozen butter on a coarse grater (when rubbing, you can roll the butter in flour, so it will melt less). The butter should not melt, then the cakes will turn out crispy and layered. Grind the flour and butter into crumbs and you need to do it not with your hands (!), but with a fork. We introduce an egg ice mixture. and first we knead the dough with a fork, and then quickly assemble the dough into a lump. The dough does not need to be kneaded for a long time (!).

We divide the dough into 10 parts, make small lumps, cover them with a film and send them to the refrigerator for 2-3 hours or in the freezer, but then for 1 hour.

Pour milk into a saucepan with a thick bottom. Put on medium heat and stirring, heat to a very hot state.

Mix the eggs with sugar and starch until smooth. Now we introduce hot milk into the egg mixture, slowly pouring in a thin trickle. At the same time, you need to stir constantly so that the eggs do not boil.

The resulting mass is again sent to the pan and cooked until thickened over low heat, stirring constantly, until large bubbles appear. In terms of time, it takes 10-15 minutes. After the cream is removed from the heat, add a little salt, vanilla (or vanilla sugar) and butter, mix. Cover the pan with custard with cling film and leave until completely cooled.

We proceed to the preparation of cakes, but first turn on the oven, preheat it to 200 degrees.

We take one ball of dough out of the refrigerator (freezer), dust the surface with flour and roll it into a circle. We prick the rolled dough with a fork so that it does not bubble much when baking. Repeat the process with the remaining dough balls. I bake 2 cakes at once, so I roll out not all at once, but only 2 balls.

Bake cakes for 6-8 minutes. The temperature, as I have already written 200 C, but still, focus on your oven. The cakes should be well browned.

We take out the cake and while it is hot, cut off the uneven edges. I put a plate on the cake and cut off the excess evenly on it (do not rush to throw away the leftovers, they will go to dusting). For cutting, you can use a lid or a cooking ring. So the cakes will turn out the same. The diameter of my cakes is 20 cm.

We put a little cream on a flat plate to fix the bottom cake. Next, we lubricate the cakes with cream. It takes me 2-3 tablespoons for 1 cake. At the last stage, we lubricate the sides with cream. I smeared the top of the cake with already tinted (with the help of a dye) cream. Cut the cakes into crumbs and sprinkle them on the sides. Since the cake was being prepared for Defender of the Fatherland Day, I decorated it with cookies in the form of stars and ears. The inscription was laid out with confectionery beads. But you can just sprinkle with crumbs and decorate with berries.

Be sure to leave the «Napoleon» for impregnation in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours.
Then we serve it to the table. Bon Appetit!