For my mother's birthday, this cash strapped daughter decided to DIY a birthday cake with ingredients on hand.
I intended to make a chocolate crepe cake like Catherine Zhang's… well, that went well!
I didn't use Zhang's recipe though. For the crepes I used Natasha's Kitchen's, but added a couple tablespoons of cacao powder to make them chocolate:
And because my mum is sensitive to lactose–not completely intolerant but her body would go into meltdown if her cake consisted of 15 layers of whipped cream–I substituted the filling with A Quaint Life's chocolate mousse:
https://aquaintlife.com/no-cream-chocolate-mousse/
The crepes turned out beautifully and even. The mousse was delicious. Assembly was straightforward.
The glitch? I couldn't spread the mousse all the way to the edge, else my cake would run into a dripping mess. So the centre ballooned and the edges deflated.
I thought I was doing well up to the point where I sifted the cacao powder topping and ran a fork freehand on top of it to make grooves.
And then I put the cake in the fridge… and it dawned on me that my cake looks more like buffalo dung than it does mille-feuille.
Even chocolate dipped strawberries can't quite fix it. Now it just looks like bull shit with strawberries on top (slide 2).
I feel like I'm giving my mother a 39-year-old's version of a toddler's "I LUV YOO MUMMY" stick figure doodle in cake form.
My mother's cake is what it is. But what can I do next time to make sure I actually end up with a presentable mille-feuille, and not with strawberry topped buffalo dung?
(One thing's for sure: the flavour of my next crepe cake won't be chocolate!)
by celestialsexgoddess
16 Comments
You just need a more stable filling that won’t squish or deflate under the weight of all the layers. If you like the mousse, you can add gelatin to it for structure.
It still looks pretty good.
Honestly, looks really cute with strawberries on top!
I wonder, maybe assembling the cake in a round pan/dish and leaving it in to set would work?
My first thought would be to add a bit of gelatin to the mousse and stack it in a springform pan to help hold its shape until it’s set.
But don’t be too hard on yourself – I would be absolutely thrilled if someone made this cake for me, including the current appearance.
Sounds like the problem was really that you couldnt spread the filling to the edges, which is where we need clarification. Were the crepes still warm? Causing the mousse to melt/seep out? Maybe a thinner layer of mousse on cold crepes?
You could try refrigerating the crepes similar to how a cake is refrigerated before frosting, and if the mousse was too loose you could’ve refrigerated it for a short amount of time my frostings have been runny before and the fridge usually does the trick. It still i am sure tasted delicious, we all have baking mistakes don’t be too hard on yourself lol
It’s beautiful! 🤩🎉
i mean i’d still smash that mud pie
If someone made that for me, I’d be really happy. Chocolate? Yes! Chocolate dipped strawberries? Yes!! I bet that tastes really, really good!
Tasty looking cow pie.
Your description had me in tears. Frankly, I can think of a few people I’d honour with a ‘bullshit’ cake, just for ‘shits ‘n giggles’. 🤭. Happy Birthday to your Mom.
To be fair, food photographers often put cardboard between layers on cakes like that to lift them up and add form
It looks really good
Would still eat it 💯
The 2nd picture made me laugh.
Cowpie with chocolate strawberries.