Go ahead and make it next time you have guests over because everyone can enjoy this as it has NO DAIRY, NO EGGS, yet NO WORRIES – ’cause this one’s a doozy baby! I love making crepes. My recipes for classic French crepes and chocolate crepes are very popular on the blog and they make for some easy and impressive French desserts. And I’m always looking for an excuse to make crepes for breakfast or brunch, especially on weekends! But on special occasions I love to elevate those basic crepes for something show-stopping and decadent. Like this salted caramel chocolate crepe cake, or this blood orange crepe suzette (perfect for a valentine’s day treat!), and even these unique sweet coconut stuffed crepes (Sri Lankan pani pol).
Vegan crepes
For the recipe, I made a few changes to make my classic crepes dairy-free and vegan. This is super easy to do, as the crepes taste delicious even without eggs. The eggs give those crepes richness (which I compensated for using vegan butter), stretch and lightness. These vegan crepes were just as light, but weren’t as “stretchy” as the non-vegan version. That took NOTHING away from the taste however. I made them slightly thicker and they came out light, fluffy, slightly sweet and totally addictive! For the cannoli cream, if you’re not looking to make this vegan, you’re more than welcome to use regular ricotta from the grocery store. Since I wanted it vegan (and dairy-free), I made soft, creamy, vegan “ricotta” from cashews and tofu. You can find my creamy vegan ricotta recipe here. For this vegan crepe cake, I wanted FIRM RICOTTA, so I made the ricotta using firm tofu only (did not use silken soft tofu here). I used blackberries instead of raspberries like their recipe calls for, because blackberries were what I had at home. 🙂 Also, I like purple. Since I was shooting for spectacular with this vegan crepe cake, I decided to give it that lovely crunch, which I love in cannoli. So I gave this cake a Caramel and Pistachio topping! This is completely optional of course, you can just top it with some berries and nuts, but I wanted to go OVER the top with this one. 😉
Recipe tips for covering the vegan crepe cake in caramel
Freeze the vegan crepe cake for about one hour (or more) before you pour the caramel on top. I added a layer of cannoli cream on the top most layer of the cake before pouring the caramel. That is NOT a good idea if you want the cake to last longer. You’re better off pouring the caramel straight on the crepe and this way the caramel will remain crunchy for longer. If you pour it on cannoli cream however, the cream will make the caramel go soft quickly. Sprinkle the pistachios on top as soon as you pour the caramel, so that the nuts stick to your cake. Before you pour the caramel, keep the cake on a cake mesh, which in turn is placed on top of dish/metal tray to catch the excess caramel drip. It goes without saying that the caramel will be super hot at this point and SHOULD NOT BE TOUCHED until it has hardened.
That’s it. Like I said, it’s an optional step, but you make this for guests and you’re going to be one super cool kid on the block! 🙂 What can I say? We loved this cake. Everybody loved it! Combining the delicious flavours of cannoli with those of a rich, scrumptious vegan crepe cake is exactly the type of thing I love to do on this blog! As you can see there’s a creamy “ricotta” filling between the crepe cake layers and I loved the berry flavours in the cake and the filling. Layer upon layer of creamy berry flavoured ricotta, sandwiched between light and fluffy crepes – what’s not to love? But then as you crack that caramel on top, and then savour the crunch of the caramel and the pistachios… that’s what takes this baby to a whole other level of awesome. Plus all this is vegan and dairy-free. Like my husband would say, it’s a slam dunk baby! Speaking of the hubs, he doesn’t much like tofu, and he couldn’t believe this was vegan and that the creamy ricotta was, you know, not actually ricotta. So if you’re having guests over who are either vegan or have food allergies, and you’re looking for a delicious and impressive dessert to make that’s sure to make everyone happy, this is it!
