How to make a gluten-free, sugar-free crepe cake

Like to bake? Have a friend who can't eat gluten, and can only consume limited amounts of sugar? Feel guilty that you're always bringing in wheaty, sugar-laden baked goodness? Never fear - follow this easy tutorial, and you too can make a decadent treat for the sugar-free celiac in your life!
 

1. Realizing you've never cooked gluten-free before, head to Sunflower Market a couple of days early and examine the Bob's Red Mill gluten-free flour selection. Settle on amaranth flour because it's described as sweet and nutty.
2. Blanch and skin the almonds, grumbling the whole time about not having forked over a little extra for pre-skinned almonds. Grind them, then sift them with a mesh strainer because the magic bullet isn't all that great at grinding nuts.
3. Procrastinate for three days about trying out the crepe recipe, figuring that you can't really make it too far ahead of time, and anyway, it's just crepes. How bad can it be?
4. Go to Fry's at 9:00 on the night before the day you need the cake. Get extra butter, cream and eggs, just in case you don't actually have enough of them at home.
5. Toast the hazelnuts, skin and grind them as per step 2.
6. Go back to Fry's at 10:00 because, although you didn't need the extra butter, cream or eggs, you do in fact need milk, and you're out.
7. Brown the butter, make the batter, and heat up your nonstick pan to do a test run on the crepes.
8. Simultaneously realize that crepes made without wheat are much more fragile than their glutinous counterparts, and that your nonstick pan is not at all nonstick anymore. Worry that you didn't clear nonstick spray with the celiac, then discover that it doesn't really help anyway. Eat the shredded crepes that result and realize that amaranth flour is not only not sweet, it's downright savory.
9. Go to bed at midnightish, hoping that things will magically work better at 6 the next morning.
10. Get up at 6 and dig out your other nonstick pan, even though it's cheap and too big for crepes.
11. Realize that because it's cheap, it bows up in the middle when it's hot, so that the crepe batter you poured in all runs to the edges of the pan.
12. Swear.
13. Wash your not-really-nonstick pan, decide not to risk using non-stick spray, and try again, letting the crepes cook more thoroughly before you try to flip them.
14. Swear.
15. Go back to goddamn Fry's in your PJs and buy a new nonstick pan. Throw away the old one in disgust.
16. Wash and preheat the nonstick pan, but get impatient and try the next crepe before it's really preheated. Throw out your fifth crepe, wipe out the pan, then allow to fully preheat.
17. Make the next crepe. Try to turn it at the stage you would normally turn crepes, and rip it in half. Flip it anyway, figuring you can always rotate broken crepes and hope for the best. Tell yourself that next time you'll just go back to cheeseballs for your celiac friends.
18. Make the next crepe, but this time instead of turning it with the spatula, flip it out onto a plate. Then flip it to a second plate. Then, sweating bullets, flip it back to the pan. Think longingly of the ease of the cheeseball.
19. Let the next crepe cook a little longer on its first side. Smack your forehead when you realize that this makes it possible to flip the crepes with a spatula instead of juggling a hot pan and two plates.
20. Proceed in like manner with the crepes until you start to get worried about the amount of batter you have left. Fret over the five crepes you had to throw away. Start making the crepes thinner.
21. Rip one of the thin crepes right the hell in half for old times' sake.
22. Get almost 20 crepes anyway! Congratulate yourself, ignore the mounting pile of dishes in the sink, and start making the filling.
23. Wail, gnash your teeth, and curse your swamp cooler, for the lemon you bought three days ago has already collapsed into a fuzzy green mess. Realize that one of your little key limes is gamely hanging on.
24. Beat the mascarpone, ground hazelnuts and lime zest until fluffy, then whine that you need to dirty yet another dish so as to be able to whip the cream in your mixing bowl.
25. In protest, just wipe out the mixing bowl, then whip the cream and Grand Marnier. Wonder how it is that Grand Marnier is okay - not enough sugar to make a difference? Maybe no sugar at all? Whatever - now wonder why you don't always whip your cream with Grand Marnier.
26. Walk away from the whipping cream for almost long enough to have ruined it. Smack your forehead again.
27. Fold together the mascarpone and whipped cream. Congratulate yourself on the deliciousness of it - it's subtly sweet after all. Spread a little on one of your ripped crepes and try the two together. Realize once again that amaranth crepes taste like they should be filled with cheese. Sigh.
28. Assemble the crepe cake, starting with too much filling between the early layers. Halfway through realize that you wasted a lot of angst on whether or not you'll have enough crepes, as you're certain to run out of filling first. Start going easy on the filling.
29. Finish construction of the cake, grumping that it's about an inch too short. Wrap it in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge while you dial in to the 9:00 telecon that you now realize you don't have enough time to drive to the office for.
30. During the telecon, realize that you haven't done the cherries for the topping yet. Check that your phone is on mute, then swear.
31. Pit and chop a couple of cups of cherries by hand, rethinking your previously held stance of cherry pitters as a useless tool. Go back to your trusty and now naked lime, and squeeze the juice on the cherries. Have a moment of panic where you realize that you don't have Jack Daniels, which is whiskey and cleared, but instead Jim Beam, which is bourbon and unknown.
32. Consult google on the gluten-free properties of Jim Beam. Get uncertain results.
33. Consider that Crown Royal is whiskey, and you didn't specify Jack, and your friend okayed all "whiskey." Consult google again. Consider that Crown Royal says it's gluten-free, and add it to the cherries.
34. Go to work and put the cake in the fridge downstairs. Worry about the student employees thinking it's fair game.
35. Congratulate your celiac friend on the successful defense of her Master's thesis. Serve the cake with cherries on the side.

Serves about 10
 
This was a fun adventure (albeit one I could have done in a more convenient manner, had I been smart and tried the crepes a day or two early). Ultimately I thought the results were mediocre, but my friend was touched, and several people really liked the lack of sweetness. If I were making this for your standard celiac who can still eat sugar, I'd have definitely added some to both the crepes and the filling. If I were to make this for someone with no restrictions, I'd have definitely used wheat flour - the amaranth was just wrong. Almost salty. I wouldn't recommend it as a dessert choice for a celiac - if I bake for my friend again, I'll try something else. The big moral of the story is that I would under no circumstances try for wheat-free crepes in anything other than a nice, slick nonstick pan.