making these napoleons doesn’t have nearly as much of a learning curve. �� Putting them together starts with making the pastry cream. If you’ve never made homemade pastry cream, you’re totally missing out. It’s SO good! And it’s especially good with fresh fruit and whipped cream. What you want is a nice, stable pastry cream. The egg yolks and the cornstarch are the thickeners in this case, along with cooking it over the stove. Too little cooking time and it’s too thin, too much and it’s a bit too thick. Keep in mind that it will continue to thicken as it cools. So if you cook it until it looks as thick as you’ll want it to be when it’s cool, it’ll be much too thick when actually cool