My history with Napoleons is short and recent. I've only had one other Napoleon from another bakery (which will remain unnamed) and found it to be...well...
...let me put it this way: Have you ever had a cannoli that was filled with the ricotta cream and allowed to sit for a long time and the moisture from the cream seeps into the shell before it was sold to you? Yeah...soggy and stale.
Soggy puff pastry is a sin against all that is sugary and good!
It's a good thing Lee didn't know about my first (and only) experience with Napoleons because he might not have shown up with these babies from Gourmandise.
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| Gourmandise pastry box with the goods for Pastry Wednesday |
Ooooh! Aaaaaah!
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| The tops of the Napoleons |
These are called Mille Feuille (the one of the right) and Mille Feuille au Fraises (the one on the left), aka the Napoleon and the Napoleon with Strawberries. I've never had a Gourmandise Napoleon--exciting!
And beautiful!
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| Look at those layers! |
The Mille Feuille, or Napoleon, is made of layers of golden puff pastry and custard cream and topped with that pretty fondant icing. They probably swirled the icing prior to it firming up. I love it--it reminds me of those cream cheese swirl brownies where you drag the knife through the blobs of cream cheese to get that same pretty pattern.
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| The plain Napoleon |
The Mille Feuille au Fraises, or the Strawberry Napoleon, has those same layers of puff pastry and custard cream, but with fresh strawberries and that golden, crispy top layer of caramelized sugar.
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| The Napoleon with strawberries |
Gourmandise's Napoleons were so fresh--yay!
The custard was rich and delicious--yay!
The puff pastry was delicately crispy. Just look at those layers, those non-soggy layers! Triple yay!
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| A close up of that nice puff pastry |
My favorite was actually the plain Napoleon. Don't get me wrong--I love strawberries, but I'm a softie for plain custard and that pretty icing.
Sugaraholic, Adnohr, and I all agreed that Lee did good and the Gourmandise Napoleon is a repeat purchase!
Enjoy!
Gourmandise - The Bakery
250 South 300 East
Salt Lake City, Utah
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