Green Tea Mille Crêpe

I am NOT a baker.  I just have to let that out.  For some reason, I’ve always sucked at baking.  Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved it very much.  In fact, my fondest memories in the kitchen was when I was attempting to bake.  I was never good at it though.  And I’m not talking about box cake or box cookies, brownies and etc.  I’m talking about baking from scratch.  I mean, it’s tough!

It’s kind of ironic though, I’ve always loved it so much as a kid.  I remember my favorite show on food network used to be Sweet Dreams with Gale Gand.  I used to own every EZBAKING oven out there.  I remember as a little girl I tried baking oatmeal cookies.  I always left out baking powder or baking soda, because I figured you only needed a teaspoon so it wasn’t necessary to put it in.  Plus, when you are 6-7 years old $3 was a lot to pay for a thing of baking powder.  No wonder my cookies always turned out bad.  I still remember..  I made a million batches.. trying over and over again.  NEVER came out right, EVER.  Man, still breaks my heart thinking about those times.  I wish I had someone to guide me.  (My parents, grandparents, sister never baked)

Baking is all science.  Maybe that’s why I’m so bad.  I suck at science.  I can NEVER follow a recipe right.  I always alter it somehow.  And with baking, you damn right have to follow the recipe.  One of these days I will get it right..  I think next month we are going into our baking module at school.  Oh man, that is going to be something for me.. haha I can imagine myself right now, messing everything up.  Hilarious.

So the other day in class, we were on our ‘breakfast’ lesson.   Pancakes, waffles, crepes, eggs benedict, etc etc.  I kept screwing up every batter.   It was just sad.  I felt like I had to get a private lesson from the chef.  He kept coming over and yelling at me, I couldn’t get the damn crepe batter right!  It came out so thick and lumpy, yet every knows how thin and liquidy crepe batters have to be.. right?  I was just so confused, why was mine so different?  Found out, I added 24oz. of flour when it was supposed to be 8oz.  I was supposed to add 24 fl.oz of water..  like.. why am I such an idiot sometimes?  ARgh so fustrating.. this is why I HATE measuring.

Anyway, after 10 million attempts, my crepes finally turned out fine.  Thank God, took a damn miracle.  Yes people, I screw up in the kitchen too.  Sometimes I am incompetent in the kitchen too… It happens. (rarely, but it does. )

So, I decided to attempt to make a Mille Crepe, which is a French cake made with many crepe layers.  This is a classic French cake which I absolutely adore.  The famous bakery in the Upper East Side, Lady M’s is one of my favorite bakeries in NY.  Check it out if you haven’t!  It’s to DIE for.  Okay, so my version of Mille Crepe is made with a green tea mascarpone and strawberry filling.

Check it out:

So of course I started out by making the Crepes.  And this is just a standard crepes batter.  Eggs, water, milk, flour, salt, and butter.  I tried making the crepes as thin as possible, which could be a bit challenging.   I also didn’t have a crepe pan, so I just used a standard non-stick fry pan.  That explains why it is not so perfectly round.. (it’s not that I suck THAT bad..just a little).

I honestly don’t know what goes in between the crepes traditionally.  I think it’s suppose to be egg yolks or cream of some sort.  I didn’t really look into it much, because I had my own idea of what the filling should be.  I used mascarpone cheese, softened at room temperature and added some green tea powder.  I whipped up heavy cream until it had stiff peaks and added icing sugar, and folded the mascarpone cheese into the heavy cream batter until it was all incorporated.  (Becareful not to just mix it in because that destroys the airy cream mixture.  Gently FOLD it in.)  Taste and see if it needs more sugar or more green tea powder.  I suggest making it slightly sweeter then you want because remember the crepes and strawberries are not sweet so you want it to balance out.  If you don’t make it sweet enough, you might end up with a bland cake (speaking from experience).

So spread the cream in between each layer, adding thinly sliced strawberries as well.  I did strawberries every other layer.  I wish I made my cake a little taller, but it was really late and I was getting lazy.   Afterall, this was just an experiment..

So I think it came out pretty successful.   I would change a couple things about the recipe though.  And make better crepes too (more thin).  But it was my first time so I didn’t expect too much.  The cake itself was very very light and not too sweet, which I love.  And the greentea was very prominent, which I also love.  I hate it when greentea cakes do not taste like green tea.. irks me.

Here’s a picture of the inside.  Yes yes, I know it’s not as beautiful as Lady M’s Mille Crepe, but hey..I tried.  And it tasted good too.  And mine has strawberries in between.  But the crepes definitely should be thinner, and the cake should definitely be taller.  I only did about 8 layers, which is bad.  I should have done at least 15!

Anyway, so you got my insight about my baking past.  I’m still learning though!  It’s kind of funny, all the desserts I make do not require an oven.  Because ovens screw me up.  Got to find my way around it… haha .  No but really,~ one of these days I’m going to be an awesome baker.. hopefully..  ^^;;

I will be experimenting more with baking~ I love love love green tea desserts and I will probably make more in the coming future..  I did make a delicious greentea cheesecake.  SO delish~  I’ll be posting that recipe up soon.

On the side note, work is going really well.  It’s awesome and I could not ask for more!   School is also very fun, and we are finishing module 2 this week.  We are moving on to international cuisines, which I am super excited for.  Regional french, italian, and most imporantly.. ASIAN!

More to come m’loves…

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