Rainbow Crepe Cake

I've been wanting to try making a full-size crepe cake ever since I made those Nutelle mini crepe cakes 3 years ago, and seeing a recent picture of my friend Serene's matcha crepe cake re-inspired me.  But when I couldn't decide which flavor crepe cake to make, my other friend Christine reminded me of a rainbow crepe cake she had shown me on Instagram before.  I knew what I must do.

After some research on-line, it seemed that most rainbow crepe cakes used 6 discrete colors of crepes, but I wanted to try to blend them together so that the color of the crepes was more progressive.  I figured I'd make 2 crepes of each color, then start mixing the leftover batter together a little at a time.  This just made an already complicated process even more complicated, but I'm rather pleased with the result.  If you'd rather just leave it as 6 discrete colors, just divide the batter evenly between 6 bowls before coloring.  But if you'd like to try the ombré approach, you can put 1/3 less batter in the bowls for the red and purple since you're only blending those one way instead of two (a scale makes it a lot easier to figure out).

I decided to just use sweetened whipped cream for the filling (a recommendation from Serene) instead of pastry cream plus whipped cream like a lot of other recipes use because it was easier, and I liked the pure white color of the filling against the rainbow of colors.  Serene also suggested freezing the cake if not serving right away to help stabilize it and prevent weeping.

Rainbow Crepe Cake (crepe recipe from Alton Brown)
makes a 24-layer crepe cake

4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
1 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespooon vanilla extract, divided
Oil, for greasing
2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar
Rainbow sprinkles (optional)

Combine the eggs, milk, water, flour, sugar, butter, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract in a blender and pulse for 10 seconds.  Let rest in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight.

Divide the batter into 6 bowls, with about 1/3 less in two of the bowls.  Color the bowls with less batter in them red and purple.  Color the other bowls orange, yellow, green, and blue.

Lightly grease a non-stick pan with oil and heat over medium-low.  Pour a scant 1/4 cup of the purple batter into the middle of the pan and swirl to spread into an even circle.  Cook for 30 seconds and flip carefully.  Cook for another 10 seconds, then transfer to a cutting board or baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Repeat, making 2 crepes each of all 6 colors.  Once the crepes have cooled on the parchment paper you can start stacking them on a plate.

Gradually mix the rainbow-adjacent colors together to make the rest of the crepes.  You should end up with about 24 crepes, more if you don't mess any up.  I messed up 2 or 3 (the first one is always a fail) and ended up with 24.

Beat the heavy cream to soft peaks, then add the powdered sugar and remaining teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Beat again to barely stiff peaks.

Place a purple crepe on a plate and spread a thin layer of the whipped cream on top, leaving a little bit of a border.  Top with another crepe and continue with alternating layers of crepes and whipped cream.

If you have any whipped cream leftover, frost the top and garnish with sprinkles, if you like.  Chill until ready to serve.

To be honest, I thought the cake looked a lot prettier than it tasted.  This happened the last time I made a rainbow confection too.  I think I was so focused on the looks I forgot that I never really flavored the crepes or whipped cream, and Alton Brown's crepes are made to be filled with something tasty not just eaten alone.  Luckily, Serene sent me her crepe recipe so I'll probably use that one next time.  =)

Next:  Rhubarb Strawberry Coconut Cream Tart
Previously:  Japanese Chicken Curry Rice
Last Year:  The 4-Hour Baguette
Two Years Ago:  Homemade Squid Ink Pasta
Three Years Ago:  Miso-Glazed Eggplant
Four Years Ago:  Happiness Cake
Seven Years Ago:  Momofuku's Crack Pie
Eight Years Ago:  Korean Pancake Face-Off

Rainbow Cookie Sandwiches

It all started with unicorn poop.  I saw this post and wanted to make my own, but I didn't want to go out and buy all the glittery stuff.  And I didn't want to use the sugar cookie recipe that she used because I didn't have any shortening.  So I did a quick search for sugar cookie recipes and decided to use Martha Stewart's Ideal Sugar Cookie recipe.

But then I found out why unicorns are now extinct.  Their poop is really hard to work with, so I think they must have been constipated all the time.  This was as close as I could get my cookies to looking like unicorn poop:

 
Sure it's kind of pretty, but then I ran into a second problem.  It didn't taste very good.  Or rather, they didn't taste as good as they looked.  Now I know you're probably thinking, well, what did you expect from unicorn poop?

Then a friend made the suggestion of adding icing and making them into cookie sandwiches.  Brilliant!  I decided to go with the filling for the homemade Oreos from the Flour Bakery cookbook.  And since it was so hard to twist the different colors together, I chose to just press the seven different colored doughs together into kind of a flower/pentagonal shape.  I kind of like how the white colored filling looks like clouds, expanding on the whole rainbow theme.

To get the super vivid, technicolored dough, you'll need to use gel food coloring, and not the watery kind you usually find at the grocery store.  If you can't find any though, you could always just make pretty daisy cookie sandwiches by coloring one rope of dough yellow (the regular food coloring should be fine for this purpose) and putting it in the middle of the other white colored ropes.

Rainbow Cookie Sandwiches
makes 4 dozen

1 batch of your favorite sugar cookie dough
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple gel food coloring

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 2/3 cup confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk
Pinch of kosher salt

 
Divide the dough into six equal parts and put each in a separate sandwich bag. (A food scale is helpful for this.)

 
Add a few drops of red food coloring into one bag and squish around with your hands until the dough is evenly colored.  Add more food coloring to get it as bright as you like.  Repeat for the 5 other colors.  (I don't have any kids, but speaking as a kid at heart, this part was really fun.  So if you trust your kid, you might ask them to help you out with this part.  But I'd keep them away from any white carpeting, just in case.)

 
Roll each colored dough into a long rope, about a centimeter wide.  The ropes will be very long, so it's easier to divide the dough into half first.  Make sure your hands are clean in between each color so that you don't muddy the colors.

 
Stack the six different colored ropes together to form a pentagon with one of the ropes in the middle.  Lightly roll this tube around so that the ropes stick to each other.  Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Line two baking sheets with a Silpat or parchment paper and set aside.  If you only have one baking sheet, just bake the cookies in two batches.

 
Slice the chilled cookie dough into about 1/8 inch thickness.  Space evenly on the baking sheet.  These cookies will spread a little, so give them at bit of space in between each one.

 
Bake for about 10 minutes; do not allow to brown.  Allow to cool completely.

 
To make the filling, beat the butter until smooth and creamy.  Add the sugar and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.  Add the milk and salt and beat until smooth again.

 
Scoop into a pastry bag if you have one.  (I forgot to put the tip in before I filled my pastry bag so I didn't end up using one and just cut a small hole at the corner.)

 
Match similarly shaped cookies together.  If you are using a pastry bag, pipe a layer of filling onto one cookie and top with its matching half, pressing down slightly to make it stick.

 
If you have the time and inclination, move the pastry bag in and out of the center while moving around the cookie (like you're drawing flower) so that the outside edge of the filling makes a scalloped shape.  Otherwise, just pipe a spiral or if you're not using a pastry bag, use a spatula or butter knife to spread some of the filling onto the cookie.

 
If I were to make these again, I think I'd actually use a lemon flavored icing instead of a vanilla flavored one to make them even more delicious!

Next:  Bagel Bombs
Previously:  Pains au Chocolat (Chocolate Croissants)
Three years ago:  Pear Bread
Four years ago:  Luo Buo Gao (Chinese Turnip Cake)