Gateau de Crepes

Gateau de Crepes

Recipe for Pastry Cream and Crepes adapted from The Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Baking & Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft. 2nd ed., Wiley, 2009.

Whipped Cream

·        2 cups heavy whipping cream

·        Sugar

·        Vanilla extract

Pour heavy whipping cream into a large bowl. Add sugar and vanilla extract to taste. Whip until stiff peaks form. Refrigerate until needed.

Pastry Cream (page 370, half recipe as follows)

Yields 1.5 lbs

·        16 oz whole milk

·        4 oz sugar

·        1.5 oz butter

·        Pinch of salt

·        1 oz cornstarch

·        6 oz eggs

·        1 tablespoon vanilla extract

·        Splash of brandy

Combine 12 oz of the milk, 2 oz of the sugar, the butter, and salt in a medium-sized saucepan and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Meanwhile combine the cornstarch with the remaining 2 oz sugar. Stirring with a whisk, add the remaining 4 oz milk. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and stir until completely smooth.

Temper the egg mixture by adding about one third of the hot milk to the egg mixture while stirring constantly with the whisk. Pour this mixture into the saucepan. Continue cooking and stirring constantly with the whisk until the pastry cream comes to a boil and the whisk leaves a trail through the mixture.

Pour the pastry cream into a bowl or pan. Place the plastic wrap directly on the pastry cream to prevent a “skin” from forming. Place the bowl or pan into a larger bowl or pan filled with ice water.

Pastry cream may be refrigerated for up to three days.

Crepes (adapted from page 229, recipe in book yields 45 to 50 crepes; my approximate yield with a frying pan was 38)

·        24 oz milk

·        12 oz heavy whipping cream

·        1 lb 2 oz eggs

·        1 oz vegetable oil

·        1 ½ oz sugar

·        Pinch of salt

·        1 tablespoon vanilla extract

·        1 lb 2 oz bread flour

·        Butter or vegetable oil for cooking

Blend the milk, cream, eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Add the flour and whisk until blended.

Strain the batter through a sieve. Refrigerate the batter for at least 30 minutes and up to 8 hours.

Very lightly oil a frying pan. Ladle in just enough batter to cover the surface of the pan. Cook until the crepe turns light golden brown on the bottom and then flip. Continue cooking for one minute or until the crepe is done.

Set crepes aside to cool.

Assembly

Whip the pastry cream. Fold the whipped cream into the pastry cream until combined. This is the gateau de crepe filling.

Set aside the prettiest-looking crepe for the top of the cake.

Place a crepe on a plate. Use a #30 portion scoop to place the filling onto the center of the crepe. Spread the filling over the entire crepe with an offset spatula. Place a crepe on top and repeat these steps until approximately 28 layers have been created.

Place the pretty crepe that was set aside on top. The cake can be stored for up to two days in the refrigerator.

Notes

I miscalculated the amount of crepe batter I would need. I had made half of the book’s recipe, but since I was using a frying pan rather than a crepe pan my crepes ended up being thicker than an average crepe. I had to pour enough batter into the frying pan to swirl around and form consistently round crepes. I made another half recipe, but because of my mistake I have recommended making the full crepe batter recipe as written above.

It is very important to spread the pastry cream in a thin, even layer over the crepes and to not let too much filling sit in the center of the crepe. It is not noticeable halfway through assembling the cake, but eventually the cake will develop a dome shape if everything is not kept even.

The #30 portion scoop provided the perfect amount of filling between the crepes. A slice of the cake was surprisingly light in texture even though the cake was heavy and seemed like it would be dense from all the filling. Overall the cake could be improved if the crepes were a bit thinner.

Twenty-eight layers of crepes was just enough to fit inside my cake carrier.

This cake is simple and easy to make, but it takes so much time to prepare all the components. I made the entire cake in one evening. With only one frying pan I could only make one crepe at a time. It would be too difficult to use two different-sized frying pans to try to create crepes that were one size only. Also 33 crepes x about 3 minutes to cook each crepe = 99 minutes just to cook all the crepes needed. Pastry cream does not take a long time to cook but it needs a long time to cool. Cooling the bowl of pastry cream in ice water is necessary and worth the effort. Take the time to strain the pastry cream and the crepe batter.

Pastry cream covered with plastic wrap and bowl in ice bath

Folding the whipped cream into the pastry cream

Assembling the cake