Japan - Dessert - Green Tea Crêpe Cake

In all honesty, I've never really liked green tea at all. I tried my friend's green tea latté once and fought the desire to spit it out. For me, the green tea flavor was way too strong and having it iced made it even worse. That's why I was so hesitant to try out this green tea crêpe cake. Matcha powder (which is flipping expensive from Whole Foods) is present in both the pastry creme filling and the actual crêpe, so I was scared to have that overwhelming green tea flavor. Boy was I wrong. I found myself slabbing the pastry creme onto the flopped crêpes and having them as a mini dessert. The texture is so light and airy, as is the green tea flavor, so you get the essence and not a punch of matcha powder to the face. This recipe made the process super easy, and I've adapted it below to how I worked it out.
Ingredients:
Crêpes
1.5 cups flour
1.5 cups milk
1 cup water
4 eggs
6 tbsp butter, melted
5 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp matcha powder
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
Pastry Creme Filling
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1.5 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1.5 cups heavy cream
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp matcha

Directions:

1. Filling: In a medium pot on the stove, add yolks, flour, sugar, milk and vanilla. Whisk together and heat over medium fire. Keep whisking until it is pretty thick...probably about 5-8 mins. Take off heat and let it cool. Whip the heavy cream in a medium mixing bowl until soft peaks form. Whip in the sugar and matcha powder until medium-stiff peaks. Fold in the cooled down custard and keep in the fridge until ready to assemble.

2. Crepes: In a blender, add all the ingredients. Pulse for 15-20 seconds. Refrigerate it for at least an hour to overnight. This helps to get rid of the bubbles so that it is less likely to tear while making them.

3. In an flat 8" non-stick frying pan, heat on medium and put in a sliver of butter (only do the butter once or twice if crêpes start to stick, I found it easier to flip the crêpes with a large rubber spatula without having them tear when there was less butter). Work with less than 1/3 cup (between 1/4-1/3 cup) of the batter and pour into your frying pan (I used a 1/3 cup measuring cup to pour it in at first, then just poured immediately from the blender as I could then estimate how much I needed). Immediately tilt the batter to cover the bottom of the pan.

4. Wait until the bottom is slightly brown (about 2-3mins) or until you can slide the crêpe around in the pan easily, flip with the spatula. Heat the other side for 1 min.

5. Lay over wax paper on a cooling rack and continue with the rest of the batter. I didn't stack them up because they can steam and make the other crêpes soggy. I spread them out and would stack them when they cooled down.

6. Assembly: In a 9 or 10" freeform / springform cake pan, wrap the bottom tin with plastic wrap. Lay a crepe on the bottom (your largest and prettiest one). Spread thin layer of filling and stack with another crepe. Make it as high as you like (but keep some filling left over to spread the top)!

7. Let it set in the fridge with plastic wrap on top overnight. This will stiffen the cake up some so the layers don't slide everywhere. The cake is best when left to develop the green tea flavor and soften the crepes for 1-2 days!

8. Plate and dust with matcha or powdered sugar.