Mille Crepe Cake

Younger siblings always demand the most attention, do they not? My younger sister, Dolly (as she is lovingly known) is no different – she is cute, helpful, annoying, naughty and amazing all at the same time, a task which I think is quite difficult to achieve. Being locked up with her over the past few months has been a lot of fun (even the times that we fought about who would clean the kitchen or do the laundry) – just having her around has made these crazy times seem fun and exciting. Naturally, this involved a LOT of baking (mostly me baking and Dolly eating :P) but I am grateful for the inspiration. This mille crepe cake is the product of her relentless demands to be featured on my blog – so finally, I dedicate this cake to the cutest younger sister ever, Dolly. You are one in a mille-ion! (Using a pun was a must, given her millennial sense of humour!)

The best things about this cake are:

(1) you don’t need an oven – just a simple frying pan will do!

(2) you can be very creative with the flavours – this is just a blank slate to let all your creative juices flow

(3) for a cake that doesn’t need any actual baking, this is quite spectacular to look at, so be prepared for oodles of praise!

So, what are you waiting for – get cracking!

Ingredients

For the crepes

6 eggs

225 g flour

85g butter

80 g matcha powder – I made a matcha flavoured mille crepe cake, but you can replace this with cocoa powder for chocolate crepes or try other flavours that might interest you

90g sugar

675 ml milk

For the cream filling

600 ml double cream

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

100-150 g sugar – you can adjust this depending on how sweet you like the cream to be

Method

Make the crepes

Melt the butter and mix in the milk.

Sift the flour, matcha powder (if using) and sugar into a bowl.

Dry ingredients

Start mixing in the eggs into the flour one by one, alternating with the milk and butter mix, making sure to avoid lumps. If you have it, you can use a stand mixer. You should have a smooth batter – mine is a vibrant green colour because of the matcha!

Batter is ready

Heat a frying pan and brush with some oil – you should only need oil for the first crepe – after that you shouldn’t need to keep greasing the pan.

Pour a ladle of the batter on to the pan and swirl until the batter evenly coats the pan and let it cook for roughly 2 minutes.

See the crepe cooking on the pan

Do not touch the crepe while it is cooking – it will start to come off the edges once it is cooked. Gently flip the crepe using a spatula – don’t worry if the crepe folds while flipping – you can just straighten it out. If nervous, you can always practice with a crepe or two until you get the hang of it – you can eat any broken pieces as a snack!

Repeat this process until you finish the batter – depending on the size of your frying pan, you should get at least 12-15 crepes, which will stack up quite brilliantly.

Crepes are getting ready!

Allow the crepes to cool completely.

Prepare the cream filling

In the bowl of a stand mixer, pour the double cream, sugar and vanilla bean paste.

Whisk at a high speed until you get stiff peaks and the cream holds up – as easy as that!

Assemble the cake

The assembly is super easy – start out with a crepe, cover it with some whipped cream, top with another crepe and keep covering with whipped cream until you have used up all crepes.

Coating the crepes with cream

Coat the topmost crepe with a generous layer of whipped cream.

Decorate the top of the cake as you please – I used chopped up pieces of a dark chocolate bar – it adds a nice crunchy element to the cake!

The cake is now ready to be served!

Look at all those layers!