Mille crêpe

I´ve been watching a few too many animes in my time in Belfast. And I discovered one about 'patisserie' which made me drool so badly and made me want to bake like mad for which there just not many options in a student’s house so you end up simply exploding. But there is something you can make, which looks and tastes delicious, counts as a cake and is also mentioned in the very first episode of Yumeiro Pâtissière: Mille Crêpe.
The recipe for the crêpes I got from a random website somewhere on the internet which looked about right but of which I forgot the actual link ages ago. It mentions makng a few hours beforehand so you can leave it in the fridge to allow the bubbles in the batter to disappear. I skipped this part as our fridge wasn’t big enough and I couldn’t wait anyway.
The vanilla pastry cream is the best thing you will ever taste. If you remember not to heat it up to quickly but gradually let the egg ‘set’ in the mixture you’ll have something lovely that tastes a bit like custard or ‘créme patissière’.



Crêpes
Ingredients:
2 eggs
0,75 cup milk
0,5 cup water
1 cup fluor
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Combine all ingredients. Mix the egg a bit before combining and whisk gently and in circular movements to make sure as less bubbles as possible are in the batter.
2. Refrigerate for a bit if you wish and want any other bubbles to leave the batter. Otherwise just dump a bit on a heated pan, make sure the batter is evenly divided and flip over when the top appears dry. This does take some practice and a lot of speed mind you.

Vanilla pastry cream
Ingredients:
1,5 cup milk
0,5 cup sugar
0,25 cup flour
2 egg yolks (yellow part)
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter
1,5 teaspoon vanilla essence

1. Whisk all the eggs and sugar until you have a smooth mixture. Add the flour in several additions and mix until smooth again.
2. Heat the milk, but don’t boil it, in a small pan while stirring.
3. Add 0,25 cup of the milk to the egg-mixture (or pour about a sixth in) and whisk. This is to heat up the eggs slightly so they won’t instantly turn into white and yellow strings when you add all the milk.
4. Pour everything into the pan with milk and keep stirring the mixture on a medium heat.
5. Wait until the mixture has thickened and then take it off the heat and add the butter and the vanilla.
6. Leave it to cool and refrigerate to keep longer.

The pastry cream will last for quite a while, I’d say 1-2 weeks or even more. The crêpes however don’t last as long. After a week or so you will find mold on the pancakes and there is no way you can or should eat them any more even after cutting the parts with mold off. Also, at step 5 of the vanilla pastry cream: putting the heating higher or stirring and heating the mixture for longer will not turn the mixture any thicker, but will instead affect the taste. The mixture will thicken once it cools down as well, so if you notice the mixture is really not getting as thick as you like then letting it cool down might be a good idea. I noticed this the second time I made it. The second time I also used a real vanilla instead of vanilla essence, it tasted just as delicious and was probably a lot healthier. So for anyone who can afford it I would advise that as well.



Mille crêpe
Ingredients:
Crêpes
Vanilla pastry cream

1. Obviously start with the ugliest and biggest crêpe you’ve made and put this on a plate or whatever you want your cake to be on.
2. Spread some vanilla pastry cream out over the crêpe. Don’t make this a thick layer or the taste of the cream will be too overwhelming and when you cut it all the cream will ‘splat’ out of the cake.
3. Take the second crêpe and add more cream and another and again until you’ve worked through all your crêpes and hopefully not all of the vanilla pastry cream yet.
4. If you like you can spread chocolate or jam over the top and let it ‘drip down’ in an elegant way. I’ve also seen mille crêpes with cream all around the cake to cover up the edges of the crêpes and make it a perfect cylinder.
5. I do advice strawberry jam. It’s REALLY good.
6. Enjoy!

I haven’t found any foolproof way of cutting edges or making sure all crêpes are of equal size, but if you have any ideas do tell me! Also, cut this cake into small pieces. Remember you are eating a massive cake full of quite filling vanilla pastry cream and a load of thin pancakes. You won’t want much more than a small piece at a time.
I can’t believe I’ve made it through writing this post because I have a serious urge to make mille crêpe now. Not because I want to make a million pancakes so badly, but because I need to eat this again. It’s brilliant!