Medovik or Napoleon: Which One Do You Actually Want?

No, and the confusion is reasonable: both are tall stacks of thin layers with cream between them, and in a photograph taken from the side they are nearly indistinguishable. The difference is the layer itself.

Medovik starts as a honey dough — honey warmed with butter, sugar and egg, then flour — rolled thin and baked as separate discs. The discs come out firm, almost like biscuit, and the cake is assembled with cream and then left to stand, because the layers have to take moisture from the cream before it becomes one cake rather than a pile.

Napoleon is puff pastry. Sheets are baked until they are crisp and risen, then stacked with custard. Nothing softens into anything: the pastry stays pastry, and what changes over a day is how much of the crispness is left.

Neither, really, and that is the useful answer. Medovik tastes of honey and of the sourness in the cream — it is a cake people describe as caramel or as toffee, and the sour cream is what stops it being cloying. Napoleon tastes of butter and vanilla, because that is what puff pastry and custard are, and its sweetness comes from the custard rather than from the layer.

What divides opinion is texture rather than sugar. Medovik is uniform the whole way through, soft, with no part of it that resists a fork. Napoleon has edges that shatter and a middle that does not, and people either love that contrast or find it messy to serve.

Both keep two days in a fridge in a closed box, which is the rule for everything from this kitchen. The difference is what those two days do to them.

Medovik improves. The layers are still taking moisture from the cream when you collect it, so a medovik cut the next day is softer and more of one piece than one cut an hour after it was made. Napoleon goes the other way: it is at its crispest when it is new and gets gentler by the hour. Neither is spoiling — they are just moving, in opposite directions.

For a party the day after collection, medovik is the safer order. For a cake cut within hours, napoleon rewards you for the timing.

Both, and in the same sizes as the rest of the signature menu. The table below shows what each costs, with the layered cakes side by side — the spartak sits with them because it is built the same way as a medovik with chocolate in the dough.

Notice is the same for all of them: 7–10 days, or at least 14 for two tiers. Delivery is quoted by distance from £30, and collection from Bracknell is free.

Medovik, if you do not know the room. It is the cake that nobody refuses — soft, not too sweet, familiar even to people who have never heard its name — and it is the one this kitchen is asked for most. Napoleon is the one with fans: somebody at the table grew up with it and will tell you so, and that is worth more than being liked by everyone.

If the table is large enough for two cakes, the pair works better than two of either. They look alike and taste nothing alike, which is the kind of thing people remember about a party.