Skip to main content

Continue the whole crepe theme: cocoa& banana infused crepe cake

I've been making crepe cakes in a row for three weeks! That sounds ridiculous even to myself, but I just like to keep practicing one recipe until I finally feel happy about it. As a result, I never get the have the 'beliked' cakes often. Now, after my crepe cake battle, I did learn some tricks, especially about how to have really thin crepes. Let's have some troubleshooting, shall we?

For those who are not familiar with crepe cakes, or care only about how they taste but never bother to know how they're made, crepe cakes are assembled by layers of crepes, filled with cream in between. To make a crepe cake, you make the crepes individually, let them cool, and layer them to compose the cake with the cream as 'glue'. The whole process is nothing fancy, just get your 'bricks and cement' ready and be a good builder! What is tricky are the quality of your materials, in other words, to get your crepes as thin as possible. There are professional crepe pans for sale online- believe me, I've been wanting to get my hands for them for ages! But it just seems unwise to spend 40 bucks and stock a really heavy pan which I will seldom use at home. (Plus, in my wishlist, there are also food- graded lye to make bagel, rose water for macaroons and a KitchenAid stand mixer et al... it just never ends...). So I just need to work the best with my pan. What I find useful is actually is to play with the temperature: when adding the batter to the pan, try not get the pan to be too hot so that you have time the really let the batter spread; after the batter spread to form thin layer, turn to high heat and let it solidify fast and avoid sticking to the pan. I guess what makes sense is 'practice makes perfect', so just keep making them!

I really like the combination of chocolate& banana, so I made chocolate crepes (replacing some of the flour of regular crepe recipe with cocoa powder) and made banana infused cream filling. The cream is not mere whipped cream, but called diplomat cream, a mixture of pastry cream and whipped cream. Pastry cream is not as fluffy as whipped cream so that it helps to hold the cake. The combination actually reminds me of my childhood favorite- dipping banana with nutella (yum, yum). There you have it, my favorite version of crepe cake. I also tried the combination of green tea with vanilla and of chocolate and caramel, but I think this one is by far the best.




Somehow, today's blog is SO technical and with no random chatting. I guess it is because I do want to share some of my crepe cake experience here, but also- trying to post this late at night, lost my chatting-in-English ability already lol... GOOD NIGHT!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

First bread in my new kitchen: Thomas Keller's multigrain batard

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Isn't spring the moving season? Yes, to me I guess as I've been moving for two years in a row at this time of year. Sadly I finally moved out from the glorious upper east side of New York after being there for 4 years (can't believe! is it that long already??), to the "humble" Queens.. However, after I moved in, I'm starting to love my neighborhood. There is actually quite a few to explore and to discover (I mean, hmm, restaurant) in Queens. Indeed, I can't just improvise to make a call to order some Chinese food delivered to my door, or walk to the French bakery a few blocks away whenever I want. Luckily I can opt to make my own.  With a good multigrain bread, some jam/spread, slices of good cheese, I am considering myself having a perfect breakfast/brunch. Of course, the world is even better if there is a cup of tea :) Multigrain batards are the most frequently-ordered bread I do in store- they're crust...

How to feed A BOYFRIEND when you have no intention to cook

I had almost given up cooking before my boyfriend! I've always been enjoying spending time in the kitchen, but, often time, I just gave in to my laziness. Plus, I had my perfect excuses: 1. I'm a busy phD student; 2. I'm spending most of my "kitchen time" baking. So I'm really used to a rather simple meal plan myself: homemade bread for breakfast, salad for lunch and yogurt for dinner. (I try to balance the protein and starch in it, so, don't worry, I can totally be filled up.) With all my passion (and time), I made bread for myself and cakes for friends. However, all these routine somehow changed when I started to take on the responsibility to feed someone- someone who is an ultimate meat lover, who hates salad (I mean, all the green leaves), who would never join my meal plan. Alas, the game completely changed- only I'm still the lazy girl as I've always been. So I came up with a couple of tricks for the "game": 1. Make it simple...

Mixology applied- purple sweet potato whole wheat sourdough bread

It's finally baking season again- winter is coming! Er, I mean, it's already here. It's such a cliche, but "how time flies!" Thanksgiving is just around the corner and my fridge is happily filled with meat and root vegetables (pumpkins, squashes, sweet potatoes, beets...). I highly suggest to try incorporating root vegetables to your bread dough. You will be surprised at how much they can help with the texture and flavor- your bread gets so much moisture and aromas. Bonus points- you also end up with beautiful color from the root vegetable you use.  Like today, I found these gorgeous purple potatoes from  Freshdirect , which were actually rare to find here. I feel that they are definitely more of a seasonal thing, probably because purple color is more festive XD? They taste quite similar to regular sweet potatoes/yams, with a slight hint of special aroma if you ask me.  RECIPE (finally!): Presoak the seeds for ~30min by combining: Flaxseed: 15g oats...