Lemon Curd Crepe Cake

I was thumbing through my December edition of Martha Stewart Living when I stumbled across a recipe that captured my attention.  Christmas is notoriously cream cheese laden and this cake was a lemon cake with fluffy crepes.  It looked so light that I thought it might be nice change from the heavier desserts of the season.  I decided to try to make it for the Sunday School gathering.  I looked at the recipe, but I somehow didn't see the entirety of it.  I got a very false impression about the actual amount of time it would take to make this cake.  It took THREE DAYS to make it!  FYI it will take a Minimum of five hours.  I was going to include the recipe but it is incredibly long so here is the link.

There are no process pictures so I am including a few here with some notes for anyone who has an incredible amount of time on their hands and wants to attempt this cake.  I will never be making this cake again because I didn't think it was good and it took forever!

Here is what it should look like.  Mine looked nothing like that because I severely overwhipped the topping.

Okay, you need to make the lemon curd and the batter in advance.  I'm not just randomly sticking my finger in this, it is to show you the consistency.  It is very custard like.  Firm, but not like jello.  I would use one less egg yolk than is called for, the whole thing was a bit too eggy (two yolks instead of three).

Here is the batter.  Again I would decrease the number of eggs.  We ended up having to make two batches of batter because it took us (and I do mean US, Josh helped a bunch) several crepes worth of experimentation.  With the second batter we used half the number of eggs and half of the called for amount of cornmeal and the resultant crepes had a much better consistency and a much much better flavor.  Stir the batter before dipping out each crepe.  There are definitely two different viscosities and you need to get everything thoroughly emulsified.

Crepes are very thin pancakes basically (you probably knew that but just in case).  The recipe says use two tablespoons of batter in a ten inch pan.  In my opinion, that is a horrible plan.  Yeah it makes it very thin, but it makes the crepe nearly impossible to flip.  We used a very small ladle to just barely cover the pan.

Here is the stack of crepes, about 20 of them.  They are heavy and adding the curd will make it even heavier, so make sure you have the serving platter or cake stand ready so you don't have to move it or anything.  It will be jiggly and after all the work you don't want to risk losing it.

Spread the curd mixture in between layers.  Don't spread to the very edge of the crepes because it will ooze as you can see on the bottom layer.  Then don't take a picture of the product because you  were running late.

I'm so glad that I didn't make it for Christmas when my in-laws come down.  I would have been stressed and it doesn't taste amazing!  Still, there are my thoughts.  Give it your best shot and I'm sure it will turn out better than mine!