As I promised in yesterday’s Christmas Wrap Up I am sharing our meal with you. I figured I’d start with dessert first. Why not?! I really didn’t stress over anything too complicated. I wanted to make something special but I also didn’t want to spend the whole day in the kitchen like I did on Thanksgiving. While I have the milk from the goats I do like to create ice cream dessert recipes. We only have enough extra for a short period of time so I take advantage of it. For this dessert I made a batch of double vanilla.
While it looks fancy, it is really a pretty simple dessert to pull together. I bought puff pastry dough – I could have made my own but again, I was trying to keep things simple. The hardest part was rolling out the dough to get the sugar embedded. So you can see – anyone can make this! You don’t need homemade ice cream you can easily use store bought. You can also use store bought fruit sauce for that matter.
Ice Cream Napoleons
Serves 4 but can easily be increased
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
1/2 cup sugar
For the Chocolate Sauce:
1/2 cup semi sweet chips
2 TBS unsalted butter
For the Cherry Sauce:
1 cup pitted cherries, halved
juice of one lemon
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
ice cream – one scoop for each Napoleon
Preheat oven to 400°
Unroll the puff pastry and break it into three pieces. Sprinkle some sugar on your work surface and on top of each piece of pastry.
Roll each strip to embed the sugar.
Fold it in half, sprinkling the top with more sugar. Roll it to embed the sugar.
Fold it in half again, sprinkling sugar on top. Roll it out to about the same size it was.
Cut it into three pieces and remove the pieces to a baking sheet covered with either a silicone mat or parchment.
Do the same with the other two pieces of pastry dough.
Bake in the preheated oven for 7 minutes then rotate the trays and bake for another 8 minutes or until the pastry has puffed a bit and is golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack.
You can do this step earlier in the day.
These will keep in an airtight container for up to four days.
Make the cherry sauce:
Add the cherry halves, water and lemon juice to a small sauce pan over medium heat.
Add the sugar and heat to a boil.
Reduce the heat to a simmer and let the sauce cook until it reduces by half.
Pour the sauce into a bowl and let cool slightly in the refrigerator while you make the chocolate sauce.
Make the chocolate sauce:
Add the chips and butter to a small saucepan over medium heat.
Melt the chocolate and butter slowly stirring to combine.
When the mixture is pourable it is ready.
Build the Napoleon:
Add about 1/4 cup of cherry sauce to a plate.
Place one pasty strip on top.
Add a scoop of ice cream.
Add the second pastry strip and press down a bit to spread the ice cream.
Drizzle with the chocolate sauce
Is there any doubt that this was out of this world? I mean, what could go wrong? Pastry, ice cream, chocolate and cherries. It was really good. The leftover pastry strips were pretty tasty on their own too – really nice with coffee the next day. It really was easy to pull together. If you don’t want to make the cherry sauce you can just as readily use a store bought strawberry sauce and no one would know.
PrintIce Cream Napoleons – Recipe
a delicious, decadent and easy dessert
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: dessert
Ingredients
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
- 1/2 cup sugar
- For the Chocolate Sauce:
- 1/2 cup semi sweet chips
- 2 TBS unsalted butter
- For the Cherry Sauce:
- 1 cup pitted cherries, halved
- juice of one lemon
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/3 cup sugar
- ice cream – one scoop for each Napoleon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°
- Unroll the puff pastry and break it into three pieces. Sprinkle some sugar on your work surface and on top of each piece of pastry.
- Roll each strip to embed the sugar.
- Fold it in half, sprinkling the top with more sugar. Roll it to embed the sugar.
- Fold it in half again, sprinkling sugar on top. Roll it out to about the same size it was.
- Cut it into three pieces and remove the pieces to a baking sheet covered with either a silicone mat or parchment.
- Do the same with the other two pieces of pastry dough.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 7 minutes then rotate the trays and bake for another 8 minutes or until the pastry has puffed a bit and is golden brown.
- Cool on a wire rack.
- You can do this step earlier in the day.
- These will keep in an airtight container for up to four days.
- Make the cherry sauce:
- Add the cherry halves, water and lemon juice to a small sauce pan over medium heat.
- Add the sugar and heat to a boil.
- Reduce the heat to a simmer and let the sauce cook until it reduces by half.
- Pour the sauce into a bowl and let cool slightly in the refrigerator while you make the chocolate sauce.
- Make the chocolate sauce:
- Add the chips and butter to a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Melt the chocolate and butter slowly stirring to combine.
- When the mixture is pourable it is ready.
- Build the Napoleon:
- Add about 1/4 cup of cherry sauce to a plate.
- Place one pasty strip on top.
- Add a scoop of ice cream.
- Add the second pastry strip and press down a bit to spread the ice cream.
- Drizzle with the chocolate sauce
