Protein crepe cake

Crepe cakes have been getting some attention lately.

They are beautiful, different and easy to make.

In case you didn't know this is what they look like

And the best part?

You don’t need an oven and you can add as much filling between layers as you want (as long as the structure of the cake retains its integrity, of course).

This recipe is taking all of that to the next level by substituting some of the ingredients, so that you can still have a very nice desert whilst hitting your macros, not only is it high protein, it is also “technically” gluten free and could be vegan if swap some of the ingredients for vegan options.

This is a great cake to make if you are just starting to bake, because, if you burn a crepe or two or three, you can still manage to get a nice dessert given that you’ll be making about 20 of them. At the end of the day, nobody really cares about the number of layers you have in your cake as long as it looks nice and, most importantly, it’s edible.

Now, since you are going to be making a lot of crepes I would prepare mentally before I even begin to sort out my ingredients, this is not something you just put in the oven and forget about

(and if you do do that, maybe you are still new to the baking world, so a bit of advice: Always check the stuff that you’re baking, get the oven to the right temperature, place the rack in the middle of the oven and rotate your pan once in a while so that everything bakes evenly ….. and the list of things you need to know goes on… maybe I’ll write a piece on *most of the things you need to know when you start baking*. But for now, let’s focus on the crepe cake we are trying to make).

Where were we?

Ah, yes… This will take a bit of preparation time, plus good crepe skills.

And I’ll be honest, I don’t have a crepe pan and I don’t need one because you can use whatever medium size pan you have lying around.

Is a cast iron a good option here? – No, I would get a medium non-stick pan with low sides (you do want a pan with sides so that your crepes are around the same size), plus cast irons are usually heavy and it would be hard to rotate them to make a crepe, let alone 12 or 20 of them.

Now that we are clear on a couple things, these are the ingredients I used:

Ingredients:

For the crepes

- 300g protein pancake mix (I’m using one from myprotein here, but feel free to use the one that you love)

- 300ml of water or milk of choice.

If you don’t have access to a protein pancake mix here’s a recipe for one:

-150g protein powder (I would go for vanilla here, since it goes well with the flavours, but you can use the one that you like best)

-80g oat flour (basically oats processed into a fine powder)

-1 large egg (or one flax egg if you are allergic or vegan)

-1 tsp baking soda

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-1 tbsp lemon juice (which will help activate our baking soda)

-A few drops of stevia or any sweetener of your choice (optional)

For the filling

- 1 tub/ 500g unsweetened plain plant based yogurt

- 1 tsp Vanilla extract

- Sweetener of choice

- Xanthan gum (optional)

For the coating

- 200g dark chocolate

- 50g white chocolate

- Food coloring (optional)

For the simple syrup

- 2 tbsp honey ( or maple syrup)

- 6 tbsp water

- The juice of one medium lemon

Let’s move on to the instructions

Step 1) Make sure you have all the ingredients you need before you start

Step 2) Gather the ingredients that you’ll need for the crepe batter and mix them all together until you have a lump free-watery batter.

Step 3) Spray your pan with cooking spray (so nothing sticks) and let it heat for a while on the stove (medium-high heat). Get a small soup ladle and pour some of the batter in the middle of the pan, then make a circular motion so that all the batter covers the surface of the pan and let it cook for about a minute before you flip it ( it should look a bit golden). Once it’s done place it on a plate to cool and set aside. Repeat until you run out of batter.

Step 4) Make the filling by combining yogurt, vanilla, your sweetener of choice, food colouring (optional), and marmalade (optional). If your filling is runny you can thicken it by adding 1 tsp xanthan gum and letting it sit for 5 minutes. Keep in the fridge until you are ready to decorate.

Step 5) Make a simple syrup by combining honey, water and lemon juice. You can heat this mixture so that the honey dissolves easily.

Step 6) Ensemble. (For this you can take a cake tin the size of your crepes and build your cake inside it, chill it and flip it onto a plate OR you can build your cake on the plate, making sure it stays up and symmetrical). Place the least nice crepe on the bottom, spoon in a bit of simple syrup and place one scoop of your yogurt filling, spread that and cover most of the crepe leaving a bit of space on the sides so it doesn’t come out when you place a second layer on top. Repeat until you run out of filling, crepes or both and place it in the fridge.

Step 7) Chocolate! Melt white and dark chocolate in separate bowls and let them cool before you decorate. Pour the dark chocolate over the cake and push it to the sides, spreading it and covering all (or at least most of) the cake, drizzle white chocolate (applying food colouring is optional) and place in the fridge one more time to let it set before transferring to a nice platter.

Step 8) Serve!

This cake will last about 3 days covered in the fridge since protein pancake mix tends to get very dry, very quickly/ I don’t recommend freezing it unless you have no choice, but you do you.