A cremeschnitte (Croatian: kremšnita) or vanilla custard cream cake is not one of the best, but THE BEST dessert you will ever try. It has been my favorite cake since as far as I can remember, and brings back lots of childhood memories when I used to eat 7 slices as once! No fancy decorative multi-layered cake can top this simple, heavenly vanilla cream, almost no-bake wonder. It tastes DELICIOUS and can be very addicting! Almost as if you are eating cold vanilla pudding with a soft crust and dusted with sweet powdered sugar.
It’s simple to make and requires no special baking skills – practically anyone can make this dessert. To add some pizzaz to each slice, I like to sprinkle powdered sugar on the top, drizzle with some chocolate sauce and place a few strawberries on a plate for some color. What a way to stun your guests for the holidays without too much effort!
*If you would like to share my recipe and photos please provide proper credit and a link back to this original post. Thanks!
Vanilla Custard Cream Cake – Croatian Kremsnita
Vanilla custard filled cake with puff pastry sheets as the crust.
- 4 cups whole milk milk
- 8 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 1/4cups white flour
- 2 tsp vanilla extract vanilla sugar
- 2 puff pastry sheets
- 3 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1.5 tbsp powdered sugar
- Preheat oven to 350F and lightly flour a clean surface. Using a floured rolling pin, thinly roll out each puff pastry sheet.
- Place each puff pastry sheet on a baking sheet and bake for ten minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
- Separate the 8 eggs from their yolks. Using an electric mixer, mix the 8 egg yolks with 1 1/2 cups of sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly add in flour, vanilla extract, and 1 cup of milk until well combined.
- Over medium heat, boil 3 cups of milk in a sauce pan. Fold in custard cream mix (from step 1) into boiling milk and slowly stir until thickened.
- Using an electric mixer, mix the 8 egg whites until very stiff and combine with the thickened milk mixture. Place 1 pastry sheet into a pan and pour the custard over the pastry, chill in fridge for a few hours until cooled and stiff.
- Beat 3 cups of heavy whipping cream with 1.5 tbsp of powdered sugar and pour over the chilled custard. Using a long, sharp and clean knife, cut the second pastry sheet into 20 squares. Place over the custard cake in place. Before serving, sprinkle each slice with powdered sugar.
Could you please advise if this Kremsnita dessert can be made the day before?
Thank you
Yes it can be made the day before it tastes best if it is sitting in the fridge and settles for a day before eating.
OF COURSE! YOU WILL WANT TO KEEP IN FRIDGE OF COURSE…
What size pan do you put this in? A 13 x 9 pan? Or must you use something larger?
My mother always made this using just a standard sized glass lasagna pan. And she has been making this her whole life, it always turned out great! 🙂
Aren’t most puff pastry sheets much larger than 13 x 9″? Can one package do the entire recipe?
Hi Sandra,
Yes a package of puff pastry sheets is about 400-500 grams and that is all you need. It is possible the size of puff pastry is different around the world. If it is too large for your pan, you can trim it off or use a larger pan and you custard cake will be a little shorter and not so tall. We have always used just a standard 13×9 lasanga pan size and it worked great for us.
Sounds like it won’t be a mess to eat if you leave off the top layer of puff pastry. Leave it on the bottom.