Napoleon birthday Cake 拿破崙生日蛋糕

This week I am extremely lack of energy and being sick. Got the coughing from my kids and husband. But birthday party for my friend Ben already scheduled long time ago. But I can tell I am unable to make any fancy cake. And after I made a cake, I am unable to put on any fondant or any special decoration. So I decided to make a good tasting cake without any special decoration. I made a Napoleon cake before in single serving size. This time I want it to be served like a big cake. In normal situation, one day or two I can finished the cake. But in my situation now, I took 4 days to finished the cake with simple decoration just before the party started. I can only work on one step at a time in one day. Those coughing makes me sleepless at night. Everything is in slow motion for me including writing this blog now.

Ingredients: (Pic 1)
1. Instant puff pastry
2. Walnut egg white crisp batter:

• 130g egg white
• 2 drops vanilla essence
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 60g caster sugar
• 25g bread flour
• 10g corn starch
• 120g walnut (diced)

3. Butter cream

• 120g butter
• 2 drops vanilla essence
• 45g syrup

4. Whipped cream

• whipping cream 300ml 
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

 Directions:

(Walnut egg white crisp layer)

1. Preheat oven at 350 degree F. Blend walnut into little pieces (Pic 2). Heat it in pan for better taste(pic 3). 

2. Whisk egg white, vanilla essence and cream of tartar(Pic 4) with mixer at high speed until fluffy (Pic 5).

3. Add sugar, bread flour, corn starch,(Pic 6) walnut in this sequence. Mix well with spatula. (Pic 7)

 4. Line baking tray with parchment paper

5. Pour egg white batter into tray. Smooth the surface(Pic 8). Adjust oven temperature to 350 degree F.  Place batter at middle rack of oven for 20 mins.

6. Let cool and cut egg white crisp into 2 parts (same size as the puff pastry that you prepared).

 (Puff Pastry)

7. Prepare puff pastry according to the directions on instant pastry box. Roll it out and cut into your square pan size (Pic 10). Save the cut out unused pastry for cake decoration. Poke some holes using a fork (Pic 11) Place puff pastry at the middle of oven. Also bake the extra unused cut out pastry. Bake until surface of puff pastry changes to golden colour. Adjust to 200 degree F. The entire baking process takes about 30 min (Pic 12). Save the cut out unused baked pastry and crushed into tiny pieces. Save it for later use in Step 15.

(Buttercream layer) 

8. Whisk butter (Pic 13) and vanilla essence with mixer at high speed to milky colour(Pic 14). Add syrup(Pic 15). Whisk until fluffy to form butter cream.(Pic 16)

(Cake Assembly)

9 .Spread a little butter cream on puff pastry(pic 17). Add egg white crisp layer (Pic 18).

10. Spread a little butter cream (Pic 19)

11. Add the second piece of puff pastry

12. Repeat the above step and add the third piece of puff pastry. (Pic 20)

13. Press down firmly. Chill in fridge.

(Whipped cream and decoration)

14.Whipped whipping cream with powdered sugar. Spread evenly on cake (Pic 21)

15. Take out the crushed pastry that you saved in step 7. Cover the whipped cake with your crushed pastry bits. (Pic 23). If you have extra walnuts left. You can put some on top of cake as well. (Pic 24)