I haven’t made izba cake in years, so I wanted to revisit it, using my newfound love for making crepes. So we have tubes of cocoa-mochi crepes stuffed with whipped yuzu-mascarpone cheesecake mousse, brown butter-ruby chocolate macerated blackberries, chocolate feuilletine, and chantilly cream. Izba cake is typically done with tubes of pastry, but I subbed that out with the gluten-free mochi crepes, because I found them to be really delicious, and I wanted to do a crepe cake that wasn’t just a mille crepe. To inspiration to use blackberries was because I couldn’t get ahold of cherries(thank you, people who keep taking everything from the grocery stores). So I had to change gears and go with whatever berries were available, and that was blackberries. I found that the flavors actually worked nicely in this dessert, since the chocolate was limited to either ruby chocolate, or cocoa powder in the crepes, so it was very balanced.

Makes a 6-slice cake:
For the crepe batter:
1/2 cups mochiko
1/4 cup cocoa powder
starter dough*
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup granulated sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 eggs
1 egg white
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

Combine everything in a blender, pureeing until smooth. Line a nonstick batter with a very thin layer of butter. Pour about 3 tablespoons of batter onto the pan, rotating the pan to spread it out. Cook on medium heat for the first side for about 3 minutes, before carefully peeling with a rubber spatula and flipping, allowing it to continue cooking for another 2 minutes. Repeat with all of your batter for another 9 times, just to get 10 crepes. The batter should be sufficient for getting at least 15 crepes.

For the starter dough:
1/4 cup mochiko
1/4 cup water

Mix together and microwave for 1 minute.

For the yuzu-mascarpone:
16 oz mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon gelatin powder + 1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons yuzu juice
a pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt gelatin, salt, and sugar into yuzu juice. Pour into the mascarpone and whip with a paddle attachment with the vanilla until doubled in volume. Transfer to a piping bag.

For the blackberries:
2 cups blackberries
1/4 stick unsalted butter, browned
2 tablespoons yuzu juice
1/4 cup grated ruby chocolate
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
a pinch of salt

Toss together and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes.

To make the feuilletine:
3 chocolate-mochi crepes

Bake at 200 degrees F for about 1 hour. Crush into flakes. Cool completely before using.

For the chantilly:
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
a pinch of salt

Whip together to stiff peaks. Transfer to a piping bag with a star tip and refrigerate.

For garnish:
Ruby chocolate

For assembly:
To start, pipe about 1 tablespoon of mascarpone mixture in a row along a crepe, and place blackberries onto the mascarpone. Roll up into a scroll. Repeat with 9 more crepes. Line up 4 crepes and pipe a row of mascarpone between each one, and on the exterior. Place on 3, and repeat. Do this with 2 more crepes, and then the top one. Use an offset to even this out. Repeat with this a layer of the chantilly. Garnish with your feuilletine. Pipe on dollops of cream on the very top as well. Grate ruby chocolate on top, then garnish with squares of it.