Tropical Napoleons

This week our TWD baking group is having a Tropical stay-cation. We are baking Tropical Napoleons by contributing baker Charlotte Akoto.

The Napoleon is made by layering paper-thin meringue wafers, rum flavoured whipped cream, and tropical fruits. Since there is quite a bit of coconut in the wafers, I decided to stay true to the coconut theme. Instead of using whipped cream (not a fan as you know), I whipped some full fat coconut milk. I also replaced the sweetened flaked coconut with regular flaked coconut and the desert was still on the sweet side.

The challenge with this recipe is shaping and baking the meringue wafers. You do need to make your own plastic template so you could spread the meringue batter in concentric circles on the baking sheet. Here is a link to the video showing this interesting technique. I simply loved doing that!

I baked the wafers on parchment paper – no flouring and buttering, that is. The challenging part was trying to remove the wafers once they were baked. You need to slip a metal spatula under each wafer and push the spatula against the baking sheet, not the wafer. Two slightly broke. I blamed it on the late night baking…So I left the wafers on the baking sheets in the still slightly warm oven and I started imagining what am I going to do with crumbled meringue wafers. When I got ready to assemble the Napoleons, the wafers pulled out from the baking sheets as magic!

Tropical Napoleons with whipped coconut milk, mangoes, and kiwis were our special desert for Victoria Day! The wafers tasted more like macaroons than like meringue cookies but we loved the sesame seeds and extra coconut on top.

Happy Tuesday, Everyone!