My latest school assignment was to make stuffed crepes at home. I have made stuffed crepes before and there is even a blog post about my crepesidillas I made back in March. This time I wanted to do a savory stuffed crepe and a dessert crepe. I had seen a picture a while back of a red velvet crepe cake and I knew that I wanted to attempt this myself. I am in love with red velvet cake so any chance I have to make it makes me happy.
Since I knew it was going to take a while to put together, I started with dessert. First I whipped up a marscapone filling. This was super easy and had good flavor but I wish I would have sweetened it more because it definately needed some extra sugar.
Marscapone filling
1 vanilla bean
16 oz mascarpone cheese, softened
2 Tbs powdered sugar
4 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract.
First, scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean.
Then add all the ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer and blend until combined.
It ends up being a really thick creamy filling with all the lovely little flecks of vanilla bean. I left this sit until I was done with the crepes so it was a bit easier to spread withour tearing the crepes.
Then I got to work on the crepes. These ended up being a huge pain to make. They were a bit too cake like and very easily fell apart when I tried to flip them. I ended up with half of them in the trash and only half made it to the cake. I will definately work on a new crepe batter for next time because this one, although cake-like in texture didn't have much flavor.
Red velvet crepes
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 Tbs cocoa powder
3 Tbs sugar
2 cups buttermilk
1 1/4 cup whole milk
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract ( I also added a little almond extract for additional flavor)
1 Tbs red gel food coloring
2 Tbs melted unsalted butter
cooking oil for pan
Sift together the dry ingredients.
Then whisk together the wet ingredients.
Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet until batter is smooth and no lumps remain. I made my crepes in an 8" skillet and sprayed it with non-stick cooking spray before each crepe. I used a large portion scoop to put my batter in the pan and swirled it around until the bottom of the pan is fully coated.
Cook until the top of the crepe goes from glossy and wet to matte and dry.
Then comes the hardest part, run a spatula around the edges and carefully flip the crepe over. Cook for another 30 seconds on the other side and remove from the pan to a rack to cool.
Once they were cooled I started stacking them for the cake. Place a crepe on your serving plate and spread a little of the filling on top.
Continue stacking and frosting until all the crepes are gone.
Once all the crepes are stacked I put a thicker layer of filling on top and around the sides to cover up the uneven edges. I topped the cake with some raspberries and dusted it with cocoa powder.
After dinner we cut into the cake and the beauty of it almost outweighed the lack of sweetness.
I will definately try this concept again but I will for sure change up the ingredients to get a much sweeter dessert next time.
After I had my crepe cake done I started on dinner. I had found a recipe for mushroom stuffed sun dried tomato crepes that I was going to try. I made the crepe batter earlier in the day because the recipe said it should sit in the fridge for at least an hour before cooking.
Sun Dried Tomato Crepes
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 Tbs melted butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes
Combine all the ingredients in a blender and pulse for 10 seconds. Place the batter in the fridge for at least an hour or up to 48 hours.
I follow the same procedure for cooking these crepes as I did with the red velvet ones. Spray the pan, add the batter and swirl around until the pan is coated. When the batter looks matte and dry on top flip it over and cook another 30 seconds or so.
These crepes were much easier to flip as they were much different in consistancy. When they were done I removed them to a rack to cool and started on the filling.
Mushroom crepe filling
1 cup diced onions
3 Tbs butter
two 1 oz packages dried mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped ( I used chanterelles and porchinis)
1/3 - 1/2 pound sliced cremini mushrooms
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded italian cheese blend
2 Tbs chopped chives
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
Jason went hunting yesterday and came home with some phesant that he wanted to eat for dinner so I decided to add that to my crepe filling. I poached the phesant breast in butter and chicken broth.
Then I sweat the onion in a large pan with 1 Tbs of the butter.
Once that was done I chopped and sliced my mushrooms
I added the mushrooms and the rest of the butter, salt and pepper and cooked them until they were soft. Then I added the phesant that I shredded up, and the milk. Reduce this by half and add the cheese until melted.
I had preheated my oven to 350 and sprayed a glass baking dish with non-stick spray. I took each crepe and sprinkled it with a little more of the italian cheese blend.
And then I added about 1/3 cup of the filling.
Roll them up like a enchilada and place them all in the baking dish.
Sprinkle the crepes with the parmesan cheese and chives and bake for about 15 minutes.
These crepes were very good but they could have used some sort of cream sauce on top to pull it all together.
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