Layered with Love

It’s breakfast. It’s dessert. Mille Crêpe cakes can really be considered a refined blend of both. Literally translated to “a thousand crepes” in French, modern Mille Crêpes comprise alternating layers of 20 delicate, paper-thin, handmade crepes with light pastry cream and finished with a caramelized crust. Created by Japanese pastry chef Emy Wada — who fell in love with French crêpes during her travels to Europe — these desserts are a work of art and are almost too pretty to eat (almost). Side note: Wada is the founder of renowned Lady M Cake Boutique, a luxury confections brand based in New York that’s famous for its Signature Mille Crêpes.

French crêpes are traditionally made with ingredients like flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar and salt. They don’t contain baking soda to achieve a lighter, less dense consistency, and are often cooked on a flat griddle. When it comes to breakfast fare, crêpes are usually available in both sweet and savory options, with fillings like Nutella and fruits or smoked salmon.

Mille crêpes cakes feature some similarities to the breakfast dish. According to Jai Cheung, owner of Miss Chen’s Cake — a local store that specializes in these confections — ingredients include flour, eggs, milk and specific ingredients like strawberries to create the cake flavor. Achieving those ultra-thin layers is also essential.

“Each of our cakes usually has 20-30 layers, and everything is handmade,” Cheung says. “The process involves a pan and the sauce for the crêpe; we dump the sauce on top of the pan, then twirl it around. We make it super thin and take it off the pan while it’s hot. We usually make the crêpes first, then finish with the cream.”

Mille crêpe cakes taste remarkably different from traditional, American-style confections. They’re usually lighter and less sweet, per Cheung.

“People make crêpes cakes differently,” he says. “Some are crunchier; others are soft. Ours (at Miss Chen’s Cake) is on the spongy side. It’s different from a traditional sponge cake, though. Our cakes are geared toward an Asian audience and aren’t too sweet.

“Some cakes are airy because the crêpes are probably made differently,” he adds. “It depends on the cream and flour that’s used. If you cook the crêpes too crisp, then the texture changes.”

You can find Lady M’s signature Mille Crêpes within Waikiki Tea House (234 Beach Walk). All crêpe cakes are handmade and take one full day to make. First, crêpes are made and allowed to cool, then the pastry cream is made and chilled to set. Then, bakers assemble one crêpe and one layer of pastry cream in a repeated process until the cakes have 20 crêpes and 19 layers of pastry cream.

Cakes are chilled to set for 12 hours, and come in flavors like green tea, pistachio (with Italian pistachio cream) and chocolate.

Lady M’s most popular flavor is its Signature Mille Crêpe, which features vanilla pastry cream and a caramelized top that’s reminiscent of the traditional crème brûlée. The second-most popular flavor is green tea, which comprises layers of 22 paper-thin crêpes with 21 layers of matcha-infused pastry cream and matcha powder dusted on top.

Believe it or not, if you’re feeling ambitious, you can make these crêpes cakes at home. That’s how Miss Chen’s Cake came to feature them as its main dessert item.

“I had seen crêpe cakes before on the internet, but no one really had it here in Hawaii (when we opened in 2018) because people thought they were time consuming to make,” Cheung says. “One day, my wife started making it at home for fun, and after a lot of trial and error, she got better at it.

“People can make these cakes at home, but they’ll probably have a hard time making the layers thinner, depending on how they do it,” he adds. “Some people don’t want to use their fingers to get the actual crêpe and pull it down because the pan is super hot. You can use a spatula to scoop it out, but it makes the layers a lot thicker. When we make crêpe cakes, there’s a special technique to it. It’s fun to make at home, but just time consuming, so be prepared for that.”

Regardless of where you get your crêpe cake from, it’s a noteworthy experience that everyone should have, per Cheung.

“I think people like these desserts because they’re unique,” he says. “It’s different from a traditional cake you would eat, and it’s worth trying because you don’t find them in a lot of places.”