20 Layer Cake

I cleaned my room yesterday. Woohoo! It was getting a bit ridiculous, if I do say so myself. I will, however, mention that a lot of the problem was kid stuff. Now that we finally have The Girl's room painted and put back together, she might be able to move out of mine :)

I found my latest issue of Taste of Home under my bed. Amazingly, I didn't sit down to read it until I had finished my room. I must have a fever or something.

I found a recipe for a Red Velvet Crepe Cake that just looked amazing. Jeff was off golfing with my nephew for his birthday, so I figured that was a good an excuse as any to bake a cake. That and I have been looking for a reason to make this frosting again. Yes, it's that good.

If I would have read the instructions before starting this, I might never have tried it. I was thinking I would bake a cake and slice the cake into layers.

I was wrong.

Gonna warn you here. This is not a relaxing cake to make. It's not difficult, it's just not something you walk away from. All in all it took me probably about an hour and a half to get it all put together. Make sure your counter tops are cleared of any clutter as you will need every inch of space available! You are going to make a lot of little cakes here.

Add 2 3/4 cups milk, 1 cup flour, 3 eggs, 3 egg yolks, 1/4 melted butter and 3 teaspoons vanilla to a red velvet cake mix and beat well. Isn't that gorgeous? I am officially in love with red velvet cake.

Pour 1/3 cup of the batter into a hot, lightly greased 8 inch skillet. The original recipe called for 1/4 cup, but I couldn't get it to spread out enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Also, if you have a pan with short sides, use that. I only had my regular skillet and it made it difficult to get the cooked cake out. Turns out they also make crepe pans. I may have to investigate that further.

**Actually, as an update to this...I have made this cake many times now, and one day it occurred to me that crepes are closely related to pancakes...that I make on the griddle. A griddle is perfect for these layers and greatly decreases the time it takes to make it!

It also says to tilt the pan until the batter all spreads out. That didn't work for me. I used the measuring cup to spread it around.

The batter is a little bit thicker than pancake batter, so it takes a little convincing to get it to coat the entire pan and even then I couldn't get it to spread out evenly.

Cook this until it starts to bubble and appear dry on the top, just like pancakes do. I cooked mine for a little over a minute. Flip it over and cook for about 20 seconds.

Now, if you have never made a crepe before (like me), your first few will not be pretty (unless you have a crepe pan, then you might luck out). It is not easy to flip those suckers. That's okay. The one on the left got eaten by The Kids because it was deemed too ugly to be a part of a cake. The one on the right isn't too pretty, but it was never noticed once it became covered in frosting and other borderline cakes.

Once you have all your batter converted into crepe cakes, start assembling the cake. Put one layer down and frost. Here's a warning. Your layers are not thick. You only want a tiny bit of frosting, maybe a heaping tablespoon, to cover the layer. If you go overboard on the frosting, you won't even notice that there is cake in there when you take a bite. That would be tragic. You might as well save yourself some trouble and just east the frosting out of the bowl.

Add a layer on top and frost again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Just keep going until you run out of layers. The original recipe called for two cakes to be assembled, but I just made one big one. I contemplated trimming up the edges of the cake to make it easier to frost evenly, but ended up just leaving it like this.

 This is a messy endeavor and I didn't even show you the counter by the stove. Just be warned.

 Finish frosting the cake with a generous layer on the outside.

 The Girl insisted on sprinkles.

How incredible does that look? As with the Carrot Cake, this is a LAYER cake. Be careful on the slice sizes!

This cake makes me happy. And it's tasty. I think you could use a white cake mix and tint it any color that you wanted. The Girl wants to make a blue and red one for Independence Day. If I can get my kitchen cleaned back up in time, we might attempt that.

Click here for Printable Recipe.


20 Layer Cake
adapted from Taste of Home
1 package (18-1/4 ounces) red velvet cake mix
2-3/4 cups whole milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Frosting

In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, milk, flour, eggs, egg yolks, butter and vanilla; beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 minutes.
Heat a lightly greased 8-in. nonstick skillet over medium heat; pour 1/3 cup batter into center of skillet. Lift and tilt pan to coat bottom evenly. Cook until top appears dry; turn and cook 15-20 seconds longer. Remove to a wire rack. Repeat with remaining batter, greasing skillet as needed. When cool, stack crepes with waxed paper or paper towels in between.
To assemble the cake, place one crepe on a cake plate. Spread the cake with one rounded tablespoon frosting to within 1/2 in. of edges. Repeat layers until all crepes are used. Spread remaining frosting over tops and sides of crepe cake.