In our lab we have a pretty nice and simple tradition for birthday celebrations. Whoever’s birthday was last makes the next birthday person’s cake. My birthday comes before the other two grad students in my lab (who happen to have the same birthday). Sometimes they make a request and this year they asked for a chocolate, vanilla, and raspberry marbled cake. I have strong feelings towards marble cakes that many people don’t agree with, so I decided to do a variation of what they asked for with a chocolate, vanilla, and raspberry Mille Crepe cake. I’ve always wanted to make one of these and I was feeling experimental. I wanted to incorporate all three flavors and I also wanted the layers to show through really well. I chose to use the raspberry and chocolate flavors in the crepes themselves and the vanilla pastry cream in between. One of my labmates was turning 27, so I went for a 27 layer cake.
A few tips before the recipe: To make crepes, the most important thing is a good nonstick pan otherwise they’ll be a big pain to flip and you need to make a lot of them. I used a 12 inch ceramic pan.
Stack all the crepes when you finish, and trim the edges for a neater cake.
Lastly, when spreading the cream, use a really thin layer and apply more pressure to the center of the cake than the edges. The crepe edges are naturally thinner, so to make a level (non-droopy) cake the cream at the edge needs to be thicker than the layer at the center.
Neopolitan Mille Crepe Cake
Ingredients
Crepes
- 3 Cups all-purpose flour
- 5 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 12 eggs
- 4½ cups milk
- 1 tbsp Vanilla extract
- 9 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup freeze dried raspberries crushed to a fine powder
- 3 tbsp Raspberry Jam
Cream Filling
- 5 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
- 3 tbsp powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp Vanilla extract
1 recipe Creme Pattisiere. I used the Spruce Eats recipe linked here.
Additional Whipped Cream and berries for frosting (Optional)
Instructions
Crepes
- Mix dry ingredients except cocoa powder and raspberry powder in a large bowl
- Whisk in the milk, egg, and vanilla
- Whisk in the melted butter
- Divide batter in two. To one half add the cocoa powder and mix well. To the other half add raspberry powder and raspberry jam and whisk well. You can also add a bit of pink food dye if you like, but the raspberry powder colors it quite nicely.
- Sift the batters through a strainer to get rid of any clumps and then refrigerate for at least 20 minutes up to overnight.
- Heat a large nonstick pan (10 to 12 inches) and pour in 1/3 cup of batter. Spread by swirling the pan. If the batter is too thick add a bit more milk until it has a liquidy consistency and spreads easily. Cook for 1 minute until lightly colored and then flip with your hands. The first crepe or two never come out quite right. Continue until you've used up all of both batters. Set the crepes aside on a cooling rack while you cook them and stack them once they've cooled down a bit.
- Next stack all the crepes and place a large bowl (almost as big as the crepes) upside down on top of the stack. Use a knife to trim the edges off the crepes so they are all a uniform size.
Make the cream
- First make the creme pat following the recipe from the spruce eats. It needs time to chill, so plan accordingly.
- Next make the whipped cream by adding the cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla to a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat on high until the cream is thick and sticks inside of the whisk, but is not overbeaten and grainy.
- Fold the creme pat into the whipped cream with a spatula gently without removing too much air.
Assembling the cake
- On a turn table, place a cake round and then put down your first crepe. Take two tablespoons of cream roughly and spread with an offset spatula in a very thing layer over the crepe. Next place a crepe of the second flavor on top and continue until you run out of crepes. To keep the cake even, spread the cream slightly thicker at the edges than at the center.
- If you like, you can finish by frosting the whole thing in whipped cream and berries, or leave it as it is so that the layers show through!
- Let rest overnight so that the cream can set. This will help it slice more nicely!