Napoleon Dessert | Mille Feuille Cream Pastry (2024)

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The Napoleon (Mille Feuille)is One of the World's Most Popular Desserts

The Napoleon dessert is a popular French pastry for good reason. It's incredibly delicious.

If I could, I would eat a slice for breakfast, as a mid-afternoon snack, and for dessert later that night. (Who am I kidding with all this talk of wishes?I've totally made that three-times-a-day situation happen in my life.)

The first time I ever ate a slice of a true European-style Napoleon pastry was sittingon the patio of a restaurant called The Alpenrose on a gorgeous fall afternoon in Vail, one of my favorite Colorado mountain towns.

If you're anything like me, the pastry case at a good European restaurant is impossible to resist. And that day, the Napoleon was calling my name.

The next day, I got to work figuring out how to replicate that experience at home and have been making this recipe on the regular ever since.

The Napoleon is everything I love about most French pastries - it's rich and delicate, not too sweet and filled with pastry cream.

"Mille Feuille" Means a Thousand Leaves

A lovely and appropriate name for this dessert, wouldn't you say? The name comes from the "thousand" layers of puff pastry used to make it.

Puff pastry is kind of a beast to make, requiring the baker to roll out the dough, fold it over on itself, refrigerate, roll it out again, fold it again, refrigerate.... and repeat. At least 4 more times. Who has time for that?

I've made puff pastry from scratch a few times and while it IS super satisfying when it comes out right, it's also super frustrating when it doesn't. Also, most of the times I want to make a Napoleon, I don't really have time for all that rolling and refrigerating.

Happily, packages of frozen puff pastry can be purchased in the freezer section of nearly every grocery store. Isn't modern life wonderful?

Store bought puff pastry makes this impressive looking pastry SO simple to make, that it just might become one of your favorite recipes.

How to Make the Classic French Napoleon Dessert

The Napoleon is seriously one of the easiest desserts you can make. It's even something you can whip up mostly on a whim.

Pastry cream is primarily made with sugar, milk, and eggs - ingredients many of us have on hand most of the time. Everything else (some gelatin and frozen puff pastry) can be picked up with a quick trip to the market.

As long as you account for a few hours to allow your pastry cream to chill, making a Napoleon is as simple as making pudding.

You can also make the pastry cream filling days, weeks, ormonthsin advance. It will keep well in the refrigerator for several days and can even be frozen for up to three months. Click here for the pastry cream recipe and all the information you need about cooking and storing it.

How to make pastry cream:

To Fondant or Not to Fondant? That is the Question.

Traditionally, the Mille Feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry and two layers of pastry cream.Check, and check. But, it's also sometimes glazed with vanilla and chocolate fondant, which creates a lovely design on the top, but isn't really necessary.

Just as often, it's dusted with a layer of confectioner's sugar or cocoa - a much simpler and just as lovely option.

This is how my Napoleon Dessert at The Alpenrose was presented to me, and it's what I've chosen to do in this recipe.I hope, just like me, you fall desperately in love with it.

More Popular Recipes that Use Pastry Cream:

• Cannoli Napoleon: This Cannoli Napoleon marries two delicious desserts, the Italian Cannoli and the French Napoleon, into one delicious, flaky, creamy pastry.
• Coconut Cream Cake: This coconut cake is light, tender, and exceptionally soft and fluffy. Filled with a super thick layer of coconut cream and covered in coconut buttercream, every bite is so rich and creamy it practically melts in your mouth.
• Extra Creamy Coconut Cream Pie: This Coconut Cream Pie, with its rich cream filling and buttery toasted almond crust, is the ultimate coconut lover's indulgence.
• Easy Homemade Doughnuts: This doughnut recipe can be used to make pretty much any kind of homemade doughnut you can imagine, including cream filled.
• Doughnut Holes Filled with Salted Caramel Pastry Cream: Tender yeast raised doughnut holes are filled with salted caramel pastry cream and drizzled with salted caramel sauce.
• Profiteroles {Cream Puffs}: Profiteroles (cream puffs) are buttery little balls of choux pastry (pâte à choux) baked until light, tender, and puffed up to form a hollow center. They are the perfect vessel for pastry cream, ice cream, whipped cream, all varieties of savory ingredients, or anything your imagination and taste buds, can dream up.
• Pasty Cream Filled Chocolate Eclairs: Eclairs are buttery logs of choux pastry (pâte à choux) baked until light, tender, and puffed up to form a hollow center that’s perfect for filling with luscious vanilla pastry cream and topping with a rich chocolate glaze.
• Mini Butterscotch Eclairs: These buttery little two-bite mini éclairs are bursting with butterscotch pastry cream and covered butterscotch sauce.
• Apple Butter and Pastry Cream Hand Pies: These buttery little hand pies are filled with almond pastry cream and apple butter. They are flaky, creamy, & packed with warm apple flavor.
• Olive Oil Cake with Lemon Mascarpone Cream: Olive Oil Cake is exceptionally moist and flavorful, with a fine, tender crumb that’s not too sweet and positively delicious. On it’s own, it’s one of my all-time favorite cakes, but split in half and filled with a thick layer of Lemon Mascarpone Pastry Cream takes it to a whole other level of YUM.
• Strawberries and Cream Pie: Vanilla pastry cream and fresh strawberry pie filling are layered inside a flaky pie crust for a strawberries & cream pie that is the perfect summer treat.
• Peaches and Cream Crepe Cake: This crepe cake includes layer upon layer of buttery crepes, vanilla pastry cream and fresh peaches, and is covered with a generous layer whipped cream and more fresh peaches.
• Amaretto Custard Blackberry Tarts: Buttery, flaky pasty crust is brushed with jam, filled with creamy amaretto custard, and topped with fresh blackberries for delicious individual fruit custard tarts that are simple, elegant, and delicious.
• Chocolate Cream Pie: ThisChocolate Cream Pieiswhat happens when you takereally goodpastry cream,add copious amounts ofbittersweet chocolate,spread all that rich, chocolate dreaminess into a crispyToasted Almond Crust, and then top itwith a mile-high layer of whipped cream.
• Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie: ThisBlack Bottom Banana Cream Pieincludes layers of chocolate pastry cream, vanilla rum custard, bananas, and whipped cream in a buttery vanilla wafer crust. It's incredibly rich, creamy, and indulgent without being overly sweet, and has been a favorite recipe in our family for years and years.

The Classic French Napoleon is a Building Block Recipe

Building block recipes are tried-and-true recipes that I consider foundational to great home baking. They are the kind of recipes I come back to over and over again, sometimes baking them as is, but often using them as a jumping off point to create something new. >Scroll through all Building Block recipes.

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Happy baking!

📖 Recipe

Napoleon Dessert | Mille Feuille Cream Pastry

Yield: Two Napoleons: 6 slices each, 12 slices total

Prep Time: 40 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes

Layers of flaky French pastry and the most perfect vanilla pastry cream come together in this popular cream pastry, also known as a Mille Feuille.

If you like this recipe, you'll also probably like this Cannoli Filled Napoleon.

Ingredients

• 1 recipe Perfect Vanilla Pastry Cream, chilled for at least 3 hours and up to 24 hours.
• One 17.3 oz (490g) package puff pastry sheets
• about ¼ cup (29g) powdered sugar - for sprinkling

Instructions

Prepare the puff pastry:

1. Thaw the puff pastry according to the package directions.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (204.4 degrees C) and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Unfold both sheets of pastry and divide each into thirds by cutting along the fold lines, giving you 6 rectangles of pastry. Lay the rectangles on the parchment covered baking sheet, spacing them about ¼-inch apart.
4. Cover the pastry with another sheet of parchment paper and lay another baking sheet on top. This will prevent the puff pastry from rising too much and give the pastry nice, flaky layers.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove the top baking sheet and the top layer of parchment and bake for another 5-10 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. (*Please read the note below abotu preventing your puff pastry from burning.)
6. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before assembly.

TO ASSEMBLE THE NAPOLEONS:

1. Lay one sheet of baked puff pastry on a serving dish and spread about a ½-inch thick layer of pastry cream evenly over the top. Layer another rectangle of pastry over the cream, repeat with another ½-inch thick layer of pastry cream and top with a third pastry rectangle. Press on the top of the Napoleon slightly just to evenly distribute the layers.
2. Repeat with the remaining pastry rectangles and pastry cream. Cover the Napoleons with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. (*See note below.)
3. Dust the tops of each Napoleon with a thick layer of powdered sugar right before serving.
4. Slice each Napoleon into 6 slices, using a serrated knife.

Notes

How to prevent burnt puff pastry:

After making this recipe many, many times, I can attest that the long bake time (about 45 minutes) works well in my kitchen every single time. I've also heard from hundreds of readers who have said that the bake times in the recipe work out for them as well.

But, every once in a while, someone will write to tell me that it took them much less time to cook their puff pastry to a rich golden brown.

This issue has perplexed me for years, but I think one reader might have solved the mystery. It has to do with how thawed your puff pastry is. Here's what she said:

"Yesterday I made a batch of pastry in the oven after ‘defrosting’ the puff pastry on the counter for 1 hour from frozen – this then took 50 min to cook to golden brown in the oven at the temp you suggested. Today I had one sheet of puff pastry left that was in the fridge. This took 20 to bake to perfection. So I believe the cooking time is varying for folks so much as it depends on the stage at which the frozen puff pastry has defrosted."

Regardless of whether or not this is the cause of the bake time discrepency, to prevent overcooking, peek under the top baking sheet and check the pastry after 15 minutes of baking. If it's already getting brown, go ahead and remove the top baking sheet and bake for another 5-10 minutes until golden brown. The goal is to end up with puff pastry that is only slightly puffed, golden brown, and flaky.

To make the Napoleons easier to slice:

Place them in the freezer for 30-60 minutes before serving. If the napoleon has been in the refrigerator for several hours, this is not necissary. However, if the napoleon is freshly made, and you want to serve it within the next hour, placing it in the freezer will make it easier to slice.

To slice: Hold on to the sides of each pastry layer with one hand as you slice through the Napoleon gently with your other hand. A serrated knife works best. Use a gentle side to side motion to saw through the puff pastry, allowing the knife to do the work of cutting through the fragile layers of pastry without pressing down too hard.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 12Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving:Calories: 385Total Fat: 25gSaturated Fat: 7gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 16gCholesterol: 129mgSodium: 209mgCarbohydrates: 32gFiber: 1gSugar: 11gProtein: 8g

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