This was a good one. I made a crepe cake. Yes, cake made of crepes (and whipped cream). It’s a beautiful thing. I made this for my dad’s birthday over the holidays and he absolutely loved it.

This was my first time making crepes (and crepe cake) and I was super excited. I used the recipe called Mille Crepe Cake from Tasty (link here), which was a chocolate crepe batter. I made half the recipe, so half the crepes and half the height. It was still quite impressive and so delicious.

The crepe mix had only 6 ingredients – flour, cocoa powder, sugar, eggs, butter and milk – but the process takes a little time because you mix in the wet ingredients slowly. The batter came together nicely, it was very smooth, and quite liquidy (which is good). That has to chill in the fridge for about an hour and it thickened up slightly during that time.

Next, it was time to make crepes. The recipe doesn’t specify pan size but I used a 7 inch one, and it was perfect. The first few crepes weren’t so pretty but only the first one was unusable – it was a great taste tester though 😛 . I got the hang of it though and the crepes were turning out really well. Since I made half the batch, I ended up with 15 crepes. The cooking process took about 40 minutes.

The keys to good crepes:

• Have patience and let the batter cook through, you will see lots of bubbles and that’s when you know it’s time to flip it over (just like when cooking regular pancakes)
• Use a thin spatula to get under the crepe and loosen it from the pan
• Flip it over quickly, no hesitating
• Cook the crepes over medium/medium-low heat as to not burn it
• Yes, even though this batter is chocolatey, you can still see that it is golden brown

After they were all cooked, I put them in the fridge to cool and then I whipped the cream. Homemade whipped cream is always better than store-bought “whipped topping”. It’s fresher and there’s no weird chemicals. I just used electric beaters to get the cream going, and once it started to get thick, I added a couple spoons of icing sugar (it dissolves easier) and a splash of vanilla. Then I continued mixing until I got soft peaks – if you turn the beaters over, the cream will hold its shape fairly well. I used 473mL carton of whipping cream which gave me about 4 cups of whipped cream. I only used about 2 cups to assemble my cake, which left 2 cups for extra garnish or to eat with fruit another day.

The assembly was quite easy and very fun. It was simply, alternating between layers of crepes and whipped cream. You need about 3 tbsp whipped cream for each layer. I found a spoon to be a good tool to spread the cream. I didn’t go all the way to the edges of the crepes because I wanted it to have a clean look on the outside. The original recipe pours a chocolate ganache on top but I decided to skip that step because I didn’t want it over-chocolatey.

Once assembled, it just had to set in the fridge for a couple hours, but it could sit there overnight which is what I did. It held together so well and the slice was beautiful. It was so tasty and not heavy at all. I liked the level of chocolate from the crepes, it was not too sweet either!

Such a good experience and a good break from classic birthday cake. I will say though, this crepe cake takes a little time from start to finish. I think it would take about 4 hours including all the chilling time, so you have to plan ahead. It’s worth the effort though, give it a shot!