Tag: pancake

Orange + amaretto crepe cake

Orange and amaretto crepe cake

Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Pancake Day…whatever you call it, whatever your beliefs, I’m sure we can all agree it’s a day to look forward to. As the day approaches (March 5th this year!) I thought I’d try something new for me- a crepe cake!

Here in the UK we tend to make French-style thin, crispy crepes on pancake day. As a child I doused all mine in lemon juice and sugar. The whole process was pretty magical- as soon as my plate was empty another hot, golden pancake would be slid onto it. One year I insisted that we experiment with a savoury bolognese pancake which went quite well. Sometimes we would have smaller, softer, sweeter pancakes (we call these Scotch pancakes).

Orange and amaretto crepe cake

The big stacks of fluffy pancakes which the Americans ate (with a slab of butter- why??) weren’t really our style. Hopefully one day I’ll travel to the states and get myself a big stack of pancakes (gluten free, of course). Until then, I’ve decided to try my hand at at a crepe cake, or as the French call it, ‘mille crepe’, meaning ‘a thousand crepes’. I’ve seen crepe cakes all over the internet and wanted to give it a go for myself!

This cake features twenty gluten free crepes stacked together with a thin layer of sweetened cheese (ricotta and cream cheese) filling between each crepe, a fresh orange compote, orange slices and toasted almonds. The result is more sophisticated than I’d anticipated, with subtle sweet flavours. I also love the way the layers look once you cut into it.

Orange and amaretto crepe cake

This dessert is also a surprising amount of work! But so worth it if you want to impress brunch guests, or perhaps for the birthday of a pancake lover. It keeps cold but it’s a bother to move in and out of a tin, so I recommend making it for an occasion. It also slices a bit neater when chilled but you could serve it at room temperature. My advice would also be to serve the compote on the side and just put fresh orange segments and almonds on the top. If you can find amaretti biscuits, crumble them up for a nice crunchy addition.

Orange and amaretto crepe cake

Orange + amaretto crepe cake

For the crepes:

500g plain flour

4 eggs

1 litre milk

For the filling:

250g ricotta

100g cream cheese

125g icing sugar

Splash of almond liquer (use almond extract for a non-alcoholic alternative)

For the compote:

5 oranges (I used a mixture of blood oranges and regular oranges)

1 tbsp light brown sugar

1 tbsp almond liquer (or tsps almond extract)

For the topping:

One orange

Toasted flaked almonds

Amaretti biscuits

  1. Combine the crepe ingredients to make a smooth batter. It would be best to make the crepe batter in two batches.
  2. Heat a small non-stick frying pan (mine was 20cm across). Once the pan is hot, pour in enough batter to just cover the base of the pan. Let the pancake cook on one side until you see bubbles on the top. Lift up the edge of the pancake to check if it’s ready to flip; it should be golden and crispy. Flip it and cook the other side briefly until it has golden spots. Place the pancake on a plate and leave it to one side.
  3. Repeat the process with the rest of the batter, stacking the pancakes together on a plate (they won’t stick together, don’t worry!). I found that this amount of batter made just over twenty pancakes.
  4. Once your pancakes are ready you can begin on the compote. Segment the oranges into a saucepan. This is a great YouTube video which shows you exactly how to do it.  
  5. Add the sugar and liquer to the saucepan and bubble over medium-high heat until the orange segments have softened.
  6. Whisk the filling ingredients together. The mixture will become looser, but don’t fear.
  7. Place your first pancake down on your plate or cake stand. Spread a spoonful of your filling mixture over the pancake. Place another pancake on top and repeat.
  8. Once you’ve placed your final pancake on top, you can decorate with icing sugar, almonds, fresh orange segments, or even crushed amaretti biscuits if you wish. Serve the cake immediately.

Mini sweet and savoury Dutch babies

This week I find myself in a bit of a challenging situation. I’m staying with my boyfriend for a few days. That’s not the challenging bit…it’s the fact that he owns no baking apparatus. No scales, no mixer, not even any oven gloves. He doesn’t mind this arrangement, but I’ve got a baking blog to uphold.

I could have brought some of my own equipment across the length of the country, but I decided not to. Instead I am going to make recipes to the best of my ability, following my baker’s instinct, and then guesstimate the quantities in my recipes. Not only that, I decided to make a recipe today which I’ve never made before.

Mini Dutch babies

Dutch babies, or Dutch pancakes, are a cross between pancakes and Yorkshire puddings. The cooking process is the same as for Yorkshires: you heat a muffin tin in the oven, pour in some melted butter, and the pancake batter, which should puff in the oven. I’ve never made a Yorkshire pudding before, but I’ve certainly made pancakes enough times to know what a pancake batter should look like.

I suppose what I’m trying to show with this recipe is that you can create something tasty (and dare I say, a bit elegant in a chunky sort of way?) with very little equipment and few ingredients. The batter itself consists only of butter, flour, milk and eggs, and then the fillings are up to you.

I decided to create a sweet and savoury version, filling one half of the batch with garlicky wilted spinach, goats cheese, and a red pepper sauce. This was inspired by my travels in Montenegro, where I ate a lot of Dalmatian stew: wilted chard with garlic and soft chunks of boiled potato. I couldn’t find any chard in the supermarket but spinach works nicely as a substitute.

Mini Dutch babies with goats cheese, spinach and red pepper

I decided to simply top the others with some sliced berries and yoghurt flavoured with a little cinnamon and maple syrup. These would be great if you were doing breakfast for a lot of people (less time consuming than making endless pancakes over a stove). If you choose to make sweet ones only, add one tablespoon of sugar into your pancake batter.

Mini Dutch babies with yoghurt and berries

The Dutch babies, once baked, are golden and crispy on the outside, but soft in the middle. Mine didn’t all develop a dip in the middle as expected. I hesitated to hollow them out myself because that seemed wasteful, but it’s necessary if you want to place your filling inside.

It was great to try something new, and I’ll definitely be making this recipe again. I think they could be nice rolled in cinnamon sugar after baking. Make this recipe yourself if you’re keen to try something new, or if you’re stuck somewhere without any scales.

Gluten Free Dutch Babies (makes 12):

1 mugful gluten free self raising flour

4 tbsps melted butter or alternative (I used sunflower oil spread)

3 eggs

1 mugful milk or alternative

1 tbsp sugar (if making sweet pancakes only)

Savoury (makes 12):

150g soft goats cheese

125g marscarpone

1 clove garlic

200g spinach

Red pepper dip

Sweet (makes 12):

Berries of your choice (I used strawberries and blueberries)

Unsweetened Greek full-fat yoghurt

Maple syrup

Cinnamon

  1. Place a muffin tin in your oven and set it to 200 degrees fan.
  2. Start by preparing your fillings/garnishes. For the savoury fillings: finely mince the garlic clove and place it in a frying pan with a little oil on medium heat until the garlic becomes fragrant. Add the spinach and stir until it is wilted. Place the spinach into a sieve and press some of the water out with a spoon. Set the spinach aside for later.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix the goats cheese with the marscarpone and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
  4. If you’re making sweet pancakes, mix some yoghurt with maple syrup and cinnamon to taste. Slice the berries and set aside.
  5. To make the pancakes whisk two tablespoons of the melted butter with the other ingredients.
  6. Carefully bring the hot muffin tin out of the oven and pour some of the remaining butter into each section. Then pour the batter into the tin so that each section is about two thirds full.
  7. Bake for 15 minutes. They should be puffy, golden and crisp. When they’re done, they may be a bit greasy from the butter, so put them on a piece of kitchen paper to soak up any grease before filling them.