Strawberry napoleons

Good desserts should include strawberries.  That may be an Alex rule of thumb. To make them great desserts, they should also include chocolate.  Now that you know this, you should invite me over for dessert... Anyway, the dessert that Gail and I finally decided on to close out the chicken-and-rice meal was strawberry napoleons.  I decided that they needed some chocolate drizzled over the top, but other than that I believe we followed a recipe.  Thing was, the puff pastry *really* puffed, and maybe that's the point, but it made it hard to eat.  The following morning I discovered that a better way to eat this dessert is to use the bottom layer of puff pastry like toast, and put the strawberries and cream on top, like jam.  See, healthy breakfast - toast with jam.  And, due to the lack of chocolate drizzle on the breakfast version of this dessert, that's totally a legit breakfast.

Wait, we were talking about dessert.  Much tastier, because, chocolate.  So, the original recipe called for rolling out the puff pastry, then letting it chill in the fridge for an hour, then baking.  I don't exactly see the point of the extra chilling, even though we did that, so I'm saying you should probably just skip that step.  Anyway, roll out the puff pastry to fit your baking sheet, 1/8" thick, then back until puffed and golden, then cool.  Whip the cream to soft peaks, then add 1 tbs framboise and 2 tbs powdered sugar, then whip to stiff peaks.  Fold in the sliced strawberries, which you should have tossed with 3tbs granulated sugar (maybe 2-3C of berries?).  Use a serrated knife to cut the puff pastry into whatever size you're in the mood to eat (apparently the size I chose was considerably larger than what everyone else at dinner would have chosen... oops).  Put the filling on top of one piece of puff pastry, top with another piece, and drizzle with chocolate, then sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Yum!

Ingredients:

2-3C strawberries

3tbs granulated sugar

2 sheets of puff pastry

1.5C whipping cream

2tbs powdered sugar

1tbs framboise (or vanilla extract)

~1/4C chocolate, to melt and drizzle on top

More powdered sugar for sprinkling on top

I think next time, to make it easier to eat, I'd use the puff pastry as a tart base, and either bake it with the strawberries, or bake with some frangipane filling, then put the strawberries and cream on top of that.  The top layer of puff pastry wasn't entirely necessary.  But this definitely should get made again, it was delicious.