Napolitaine

Ingredients

The dough

• 500 gplain flour
• 250 gbutter, cold and diced
• about 100 ml cold water
• a pinch of salt

The filling

• 250 gguava jam
• confiture de goyave de Chine
• or strawberry or raspberry jam

The icing

• 400 gicing sugar
• about 60 ml water
• pink food colouring
• a squeeze of lemon, optional

To serve

• with tea
• from a Mauritian bakery

Directions

1. Put the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the cold diced butter to it. Rub it in with your fingertips. Work until it looks like coarse crumbs. Do not work it down to a paste. Keep the butter cold throughout. Cold butter stays in small pieces.
2. Warm butter blends in and makes it tough. Work quickly and keep it cold. Adding the water is done sparingly. Add cold water a little at a time. Bring it together into a dough. Add only enough to bring it together. Too much water makes it tough. Press it together rather than kneading.
3. Wrap the dough and refrigerate it. Give it at least one full hour. Roll it out on a floured surface. Take it down to about half a centimetre. Each must be thin enough not to be heavy.
4. Cut rounds with a plain cutter. Make them about seven centimetres across. Cut an even number of the rounds. Each pastry needs two matching rounds. Cut them all to the same size. Set the rounds on a lined tray. Heat the oven to one hundred and eighty degrees.
5. Bake them for about fifteen minutes. Judging them takes a careful look. Let them cool right down completely. Jam on a warm biscuit soaks straight through. Let them go entirely cold first. Spread jam on half the rounds. Use a good spoonful of jam on each. Spread it nearly out to the edge.
6. Leave a small margin so it does not squeeze out. Sandwiching them is straightforward enough. Put a second round on top of each. Press it down on top of it gently.
7. Press just enough to seat it down. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the water a little at a time. Stir it into a thick smooth icing. It should be thick rather than runny. Add more sugar if it is too thin. Add pink colouring a drop at a time. Stir it in until the colour is even.
8. Add it gradually rather than all at once. You cannot take colour back out. Spoon icing over each sandwiched pastry. Spread it over the top and down the sides. Work it round the edges as well. Set them out on a rack to dry. Give the icing at least two hours. Set them out on a serving plate. Serve hot black tea alongside them. They keep three days in a sealed tin.

Technique

• Despite the name it has nothing to do with Naples, and Mauritian sources are unanimous that it is entirely Mauritian; it is also not the French pastry of the same name. No documented explanation for the name was found, so the atlas records the confusion rather than inventing an origin.
• The atlas calls the dough shortbread, but every Mauritian-sourced recipe uses flour and butter only, with no sugar and no egg — Mauritian writers call it pâte brisée or sablé. That plainness is deliberate: all the sweetness comes from the jam and the icing, and a sweet biscuit under sweet icing would cloy.
• The traditional filling is guava jam, specifically goyave de Chine — the strawberry guava that grows abundantly in Mauritius. Strawberry and raspberry are substitutes adopted elsewhere rather than the tradition.

Substitutions

• Strawberry or raspberry jam stands in where guava jam is unavailable.
• Bake the biscuits pale deliberately, since a browned one shows through the pink icing.

Variations

• Pink is the classic and default colour, but Mauritian bakeries routinely sell blue, yellow and orange, and flavoured versions.
• The icing is icing sugar and water, sometimes cooked briefly, and sets firm — closer to a hard glaze than a soft frosting.
• The icing coats the whole pastry, top and sides, rather than sitting as a disc on top.

History

A soft shortbread sandwich filled with jam and coated in pink icing, sold in Mauritian bakeries and named after Naples.

Frequently asked questions

What is Napolitaine?

Napolitaine is a dessert from Mauritius: shortbread sandwich with jam under pink icing. A soft shortbread sandwich filled with jam and coated in pink icing, sold in Mauritian bakeries and named after Naples.

How long does Napolitaine take to make?

Napolitaine takes 40 minutes plus resting of preparation and 15 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes about 10 pastries. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Napolitaine?

Yes, within limits. Strawberry or raspberry jam stands in where guava jam is unavailable. Bake the biscuits pale deliberately, since a browned one shows through the pink icing.

What is the most important thing to get right in Napolitaine?

Put the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the cold diced butter to it. Rub it in with your fingertips. Work until it looks like coarse crumbs. Do not work it down to a paste. Keep the butter cold throughout. Cold butter stays in small pieces.