millefeuille

Millefeuille, the classic pastry, is often called a Napoleon (supposedly because Boney liked them so much). It is made of layers of puff pastry with crème chiboust sandwiched in between and marbled icing on top. They come in every possible flavour.

But a millefeuille can also be anything with multiple layers, including savoury dishes.

The ultimate layered dessert is a gâteau Napoleon (or gâteau russe), which according to tradition was somehow invented in 1812 when Napoleon was in Russia. But in reality it was created in 1925 by a pastry chef from Oloron Sainte-Marie, Adrien Artigarrède, who reinterpreted a older recipe by adding Crimean almonds and sprinkling the cake with powdered sugar ‘to evoke the snowy peaks of Russia’.