From The Four Seasons, New York, New York
Difficulty: Complicated
Make Ahead
Yield: 2 Napoleons (16″ x 24″)
Ingredients:
Puff Pastry
- 2-1/2 pounds sweet butter
- 1-1/2 pounds semi-sweet chocolate
- 1-1/2 pints water
- 2-1/2 pounds flour (1/2 bread flour, 1/2 cake flour)
- pinch of salt
Cream Filling
- 3 quarts heavy cream
- 2 pounds chocolate shavings
- 3 pounds semi-sweet chocolate, melted
Instructions:
- Cream butter until smooth.
- Melt 1-1/2 pounds chocolate and let cool to lukewarm.
- Mix chocolate and butter together, stirring well.
- Set aside 1 cup of this mixture.
- Put remaining mixture into a ball on cookie sheet and set aside.
- Combine remaining cup of chocolate/butter mixture with flour, salt and water.
- Mix well until it forms the consistency of regular puff pastry dough (adjust water as needed). Put into a ball and set aside.
- Refrigerate both mixtures for 1 hour.
- Remove from refrigerator.
- Combine the dough and chocolate/butter mixture as one would a regular puff pastry dough, by rolling 4 times — first a simple roll — then a double roll.
- Repeat making sure that the mixture is refrigerated for 35 minutes between each roll.
- After last roll let rest for 1/2-1 hour in refrigerator.
- Preheat oven to 380°.
- Remove from refrigerator.
- Pull out dough, as one would a regular Napoleon dough, onto cooking sheets.
- Make sure to prick dough with a fork before baking.
- Bake for 15 minutes on each side.
- Let cool completely. This makes six 16″ x 24″ sheets.
- Boil cream and remove from fire.
- Add 3 pounds melted chocolate.
- Mix and strain to remove any lumps.
- Chill overnight.
- Remove from refrigerator and let stand to room temperature.
- Whip until creamy. If mixture is too cool, warm carefully over fire.
- Divide mixture into 3 parts, making 1 part smaller for top layer.
- Spread on puff pastry, alternating layers of pastry and cream until three layers of cream are formed.
- Sprinkle top layer with chocolate shavings.