Chocolate Crepe Cake

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Last week my whole family got together to celebrate my cousin's wedding.  My big sister, the Farm Girl, brought me a dozen and a half organic, free-range eggs.  Eggs from free-range chickens tend to be higher in lutein and vitamin D, as well as having a shell that cracks better then the typical store bought ones.

FG is a nurse practitioner by trade, but she and her husband, a lawyer, own several hundred acres in Virginia.  They've been growing fruit & veggies for a few years, and now have recently begun raising cows and chickens. They haven't officially opened a farmstand yet, but I'll let you know when they do.  Locals will definitely be wanting some of their fantastic organic produce and eggs.  Just look at the difference between the "large" store bought egg, and the fantastic free-range egg.

I had fried up an egg for my breakfast yesterday, but I knew these eggs had to be used for something a bit more special.  So I made a Chocolate Crepe Cake to bring over to our BFFs house.  I started by making the crepes.  I whisked together 6 of FG's ginormous eggs, you'll want to use 9 store bought large eggs, with 2 cups of milk, 4 tbsps of melted butter, 1 tsp of salt, 1/4 cup sweet rice flour, 1/4 cup cornstarch, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, and 1/4 cup sugar.  Whisk until smooth and let the batter sit for 10 minutes.

After the batter has sat, give it another whisking to be sure none of the cornstarch has settled to the bottom, and using a measuring cup pour 1/4 cup batter into the bottom of a crepe pan that has been buttered, and is over medium heat, and swirl the batter around the bottom to coat the pan.

After 1 minute, flip it over.  You'll mangle the first couple of crepes, but that's ok - everyone does.

Here's a successful flipping.  I use a silicone rubber scraper for this.  I find that it works better than a typical flipper spatula.

After 30 seconds on the flip side, remove it to a plate to cool.  I lay them out around a plate, offsetting them to help them cool.

Continue on til you've used up all the batter, making sure to butter the pan between crepes.


A typical Crepe Cake is assembled with a pastry cream, I like using a Chocolate Mousse for my Chocolate Crepe Cake.  To create the chocolate mousse, I fold stabilized whipped cream into some chocolate pudding.  If I hadn't just stood over a stove for the better part of 40 minutes, I'd have made some real from scratch chocolate pudding, but I just opened up some pudding cups.  You'll want 3 cups of pudding which for me was 6 snack pack cups.

To make the stabilized whipped cream, I sprinkled 1 tbsp of unflavored gelatin over 1/4 cup of water in a ramekin and let it soften for a minute.  I zapped it in the microwave for 25 seconds, and stirred it so that the gelatin dissolved, then set it aside to cool.  Meanwhile I whipped up 2 cups heavy cream with 1/2 cup powdered sugar.  I added the cooled gelatin mixture towards the end of the whipping step when the cream was holding soft peaks.  Chill the whipped cream for 10 minutes before folding into the pudding.

I sacrificed some of the whipped cream to lighten up the pudding, then folded in the rest in 1/4s.

To assemble the crepe cake, I start by laying out a crepe on my cake plate and rimming the plate with sheets of parchment.  This will keep the plate clean.

I plop a dollop of the mousse(as much as a spoonula will transfer) on the crepe and smooth it with an offset spatula.

Layer the crepes with the mousse in this fashion,

until all the crepes have been used.  You can serve it like this with just a dusting of powdered sugar or cocoa powder.

I like to use up all the mousse and cover the entire cake with it.  Refrigerate this cake til serving time, and dust it with a bit of powdered sugar just before cutting.

This cake has the most amazing layers when served.  I have no pics of this because I didn't bring my camera to our BFFs house, but it's a very cool looking cut cake.

Thanks for stopping by and cooking with me.  I'm linking this up to All the Small Stuff's Tuesdays at the Table, At the Well's Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Tales from the Fairy Blogmother's What's Cooking Wednesdays, Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff Party, A Glimpse Inside's Catch a Glimpse Party, and Gluten-Free Homemaker's Gluten-Free Wednesdays.