Durian Crepe Cake

Two days ago, I was at North Point stocking up on Kdramas, then I pop over to the market to get some organic vegetables. The vendor had a newly arrived crate of durians for sale. She was very observant, she saw me eying the durians. She immediately asked her husband to open a fruit for me to try. Not able to resist the temptation of the King of fruits, I grapped one...imagine me eating durian on the street. The durian was so aromatic and sweet, without hesitation I bought one big Thai Golden Pillow. It cost me HK$50, not expensive at all!

Though durian is The King of Fruits, there is definitely a clear line of either you love it or you hate it. For those who love it, it is smooth, creamy, rich and aromatic. If you burp after you have eaten some, people from a yard away can smell you. For those who hate it, it is the smell of "cat's poo"!

Now back to my durian crepe cake! Why did I do a crepe cake instead of a baked cake? Really it was because I was shopping with DD last weekend at Sogo in Causeway Bay. While we were hanging around the street behind Sogo we were drawn by the nice aroma to a little kiosk which was selling crepes and the queue was so long, we didn't bother to queue and wait. Then this week I saw Edith's crepe, I went on to surf the net and discovered this Hokkaido Mille Crepe Cake which was so popular in Taiwan and the wait list for this cake was about a month(reported by TVBS programme). I was inspired!

Crepes are really versatile for many reasons because with one basic batter recipe you can do an array of both sweet and savory fillings. Just use your imagination and they really do wonders to the palate. Textures of crepe are really personal preferences - some like it thin and crispy, others like it soft and not too thin. For me, I did a sweet version with durian as the filling and a not so thin type of crepe.

Enjoy it or Hate it!!!





The lacy design of the crepe created naturally from the heat is so beautiful, so I used it as my top layer.




Joanna, this is how I get the crepes to be of standard size.
I used a flat base fry pan and a bottomless cake ring. Grease the ring for every crepe.
When the batter is firm, I use a cake tester to go around the cake ring to release the crepe, be careful of the heat from the cake ring.


Ingredients: (14 pieces 16cm crepes)
Crepe
200g cake flour/plain flour (I used cake flour)
3 eggs
1/2 - 3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
400ml milk
3/4 tsp vanilla essence
70g melted butter

Filling
450g durian pulp
150g whipping cream

Method:
1. Mix all ingredients for the crepe together till you get a smooth runny batter. Strain if your batter is lumpy. Rest the batter for 45 minutes.
2. Heat up a non-stick flat based pan on medium heat and grease lightly with some butter or oil (I used corn oil). Pour in appropriate amount of batter and cooked till surface of the crepe is firm then flip over and cook for a little while more or till the crepe is of the goldening color that you liked. Repeat with the remaining batter. ** I used a 16cm cake ring as a girdle so that the size of my crepe will be uniform.
3. Remove seeds from the durian and mash durian pulp with a fork till creamy.
4. Whip whipping cream till stiff. Add in the durian pulp and blend with a spatula till well combined.
5. Put a piece of crepe on a cakeboard, add in the filling and smoothen with a flat palette knife. Make sure the filling is spread evenly, otherwise the cake will be lopsided. Alternate with a layer of crepe and a layer of filling. Chill the whole cake in the fridge.
6. Remove from the fridge and rest at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.

Notes:
The filling I had was only enough for 11 crepes.
Number of crepes depends on the thickness that you liked. If you are making thinner crepes, you get more pieces and vice versa.