"" cake

For the pastry:1 egg250g soft butter (but not so much so that it disintegrates, perhaps an hour's out of fridge)540g flourjuice of 1/2 lemon1/2 teaspoon salt125 ml water (cold)

For the cream:300g of soft butter405g tin condensed milk

1. Mix flour and butter with fingertips, till they form breadcrumbs.

2. Mix the water, egg, lemon juice and salt.

3. Pour into the breadcrumbs and mix again. The result will be quite hard to kneed, because of all the butter, so just try to put everything in one neat piece, as much as possible.

4. Divide the mixture into 7 balls and leave in the fridge for an hour (or longer).

Pastry balls before going into fridge for chilling

5. Turn on your oven to 220C (or 200C if fan-assisted).

6. Prepare clean, open kitchen surface. Have a little bit of flour to dust the surface and the pastry whilst working on it. Take out one ball at a time (the colder the pasty, the easier it is to work with), flatten it first with your hands, then roll it out carefully with a rolling pin to shape a thin (about 3 mms) circle, square or a rectangle (depending on what shape you want your finished cake to be). The shapes are going to be all over the place, so you can try to use a plate to cut out your circle, or trim the rough edges later. Don't panic.

7. Using your rolling pin, lift each circle and carefully place onto a baking sheet (no need to smear with butter, as there's so much of it in the dough already). Something I didn't do - prick each circle with a fork in several places, to stop bubbles forming whilst baking; or place another baking sheet on top for the first few minutes of baking it to flatten it.Making Napoleon's layers8. Bake 2-3 layers at a time in your oven for about 15 minutes - until they are lightly browned.

9. While they are cooking, mix the butter and condensed milk together, beat to form a cream.

10. Once the circles are cooked, allow to cool. At this stage you can carefully cut out the imperfections with a sharp knife (but be prepared that bigger pieces of pastry may fall off as it is so crumbly - don't worry, it will all be yummy). Take the least perfect circle, crumble it and set aside (you'll need the crumbs to sprinkle on top of the cake for decoration).

11. Start layering your Napoleon: one circle, spread some cream generously (I'd say good 4 tbs), put another circle and so on, finishing with cream. Smear more cream onto the sides - tricky, but persevere.

12. Sprinkle the top and sides of the cake with the crumbs you set aside, and leave to stand in room temperature for 2-3 hours, then transfer into a fridge overnight or even whole day. Napoleon is best on day 2-3, as all the layers will 'soak up' the cream.

Napoleon - the imperfect, yet deliriously delicious result

13. Serve with hot black tea or Turkish coffee