Makes: 8 inch cake (24 layers)

Time required: 3 hours

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆

Inspiration:

Having never made crepes or pancakes before (well … not cooking much in a pan at all), I was keen to try making a crepe cake. I’ve always loved the crepe cakes from the famous Lady M – stopping by the Lady M boutique on 40th street each time I’ve visited New York and I still remember how excited I was to stumble across a Lady M on a trip to Singapore where I got to introduce my sister (who is a huge fan of matcha) to the matcha crepe cake.

Initially, given it was my first time making crepes I wanted to keep the cake simple – like the Lady M ones – by just making it layers of crepe and cream. However, after exploring the nearby wet market in Hong Kong for fresh fruits I came home with a bunch of passionfruit and decided to incorporate those into the cake. I ended up with a crepe cake layered with passionfruit custard and chocolate ganache – as you could probably guess from my previous posts (passionfruit & chocolate eclairs, passionfruit & chocolate tart …) it is one of my favourite flavour combinations!

Elements of this cake:

• 24 crepes (~8 inch in diameter)
•  passionfruit custard
• chocolate ganache

Ingredients:

Crepes (makes ~24 depending on the size of your pan)

• 600ml whole milk
• 1tsbp vanilla paste
• 2tsbp brandy
• 5 egg yolks
• 50g caster sugar
• 90g butter
• 300g all purpose flour

Passionfruit Custard:

• 700ml whole milk
• 3 eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 200g caster sugar
• 65g cornstarch
• 1tsbp vanilla
• 85g butter
• 4 passionfruits, seeds removed

Chocolate Ganache:

• 100g dark chocolate
• 100ml cream

 

Instructions:

I’d recommend making the custard first, so it has time to cool in the fridge while you’re frying the crepes

Crepes:

1. place all the ingredients except flour into a blender and blend on med speed
2. add in the flour and blend again until well combined
3. refrigerate for 2 hours (or overnight)
4. lightly spray or grease a small pan (~8inch in diameter) and fry the crepe batter on medium heat. I used around 1/4 cup of batter for each crepe
5. allow the crepes to cool by spreading on parchment paper while making the rest of the crepes

Passionfruit custard:

1. place the whole eggs, egg yolks and cornstarch with 20g of the sugar in a bowl and whisk until smooth
2. in a large saucepan, combine milk, remaining sugar and vanilla and bring to a boil
3. remove from the heat and slowly pour in half the hot milk into the egg mixture while whisking to avoid cooking the eggs
4. pour the milk and egg mixture back into the pot and heat until the mixture lightly bubbles
5. remove from heat and stir in the passionfruit and butter
6. pour the custard through a fine mesh and plastic wrap with the plastic touching the surface of the custard and store in the fridge to cool

Chocolate Ganache:

1. bring cream to boil
2. poor over chocolate and set aside for 2 mins. Stir together the melted chocolate and cream

Assembling the crepe cake:

1. take one crepe and place it on a 8 inch cake board
2. spread a thin layer of chocolate ganache over the crepe
3. follow with a thin layer of passionfruit custard
4. place the next crepe over the top and repeat until all the crepes are used up

You could also trim the edges of the crepes to a 8inch cake tin if you want cleaner edges, however I preferred the natural rough edges on my cake. I also coated the top of the cake in sugar and torched it for a bruleed finish

 

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