Tiramisu Mille Crepe

It is tedious!

The thousand layer cake was one of the popular and chic deserts in recent years. I kept on seeing various pictures, recipes and cook shows of it on Facebook and Instagram and that got me asking what’s so good about this cake? How can a slice of cake so thin cost CAD 6? Why do people go crazy for this?

To be honest, I don’t like the taste or texture of this cake. I prefer fluffier cakes like an angel food cake or a sponge cake. However, you can also argue that the thousand layer cake is a crepe, not a cake, hence the name mille crepe. When you bite into a mille crepe, the cream layer dissolves and flows out from on between of the soft tender crepe layers and melts onto your tongue. Each layer of the cake falls apart into small bits and that’s when you realize, “Oh right, I’m eating a crepe.”

I did not realize until I started making this cake, how much time it takes to produce a mille crepe all by hand. Making the batter only took the matter of seconds. Frying, cooling, assembling was the real patience boot camp.

A good mille crepe requires two crucial components:  thin and soft crepe layers and light and flavorful filling. To make thin crepe layers, there are no quick ways around it but to slowly, carefully, patiently fry each and every one layer. You can’t speed up the process by turning up the heat too high, because you may end up with a crusty crepe that tastes like a wafer cake. You can’t rush it by pouring more batter or using a bigger pan to fry each layer of crepe because your crepe will end up too thick or unevenly shaped and have a chunky texture and less appealing overall.

One. Layer. At. A. Time.

I remember my first attempt in making a mille crepe took me 40 min at frying the crepe layers and another 40 at assembling the cake. I was pretty happy with the result although it was very rough and far from the conventional look of a mille crepe. When I called my brother over to take a taste test, he ended up devouring the cake within a matter of minutes – it might’ve been under 10 minutes.

2 hours of my hard work. Gone. I was hoping to admire it for just a few hours longer and perhaps share it with some friends.

At least this proves that taste-wise the mille crepe was a success.

I must say, despite the tedious work. Making this cake was a fun process and it is always rewarding to see my friends and family savouring the food I make regardless whether if I actually like the food myself or not. I would never make this cake just for a casual breakfast. However, this is really simple, though time-consuming, dessert to make to impress your friends, family, or other visitors that come over for an afternoon tea.

Estimate the time you have before you give it a try!