Russian Napoleon Cake

This butter cream frosting recipe can and should be used for every cake from this point forward.
Note: not for those on a diet.

My grandma used to make napoleon cake when I was little.  It consists of several very thin layers of a flaky dough in between which are layers of frosting.   It takes quite a while to make the layers, so I cheated and used premade puff pastry.  It's worth it.

Russian Butter-cream Frosting

1 cup sugar
1 egg

Mix together and set aside.

1 cup milk

Heat milk on the stove in a medium size pot until milk is steaming hot and almost boiling.  Turn off.  With a whisk, slowly VERY SLOWLY, add the sugar mixture into the milk, whisking all the way so the egg doesn't cook in one place.   Set aside to cool.

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

Beat butter until light and fluffy.  When the milk mixture is room temperature (not hot), slowly beat it into the butter batch by batch.  I usually don't end up using all of the milk mixture because it would be too sweet.  Add just enough for your sweetness level. Beat in 1 tsp of vanilla.  All done!  Put in fridge for a few minutes while getting ready to frost. Do not leave in fridge for long as the frosting becomes hard when cold and difficult to spread.

For this dessert, I cut up the puff pastry sheet into three pieces, based on the fold lines.  Baked at 400 for approximately 15 min and then let cool to room temperature.  Once cool, layer the puff pastry with the frosting.  For best results, I let the cake sit in the fridge over night, so the frosting can soak through the layers.