Crepes of Wrath
We've been reading a ton of Petzi books to our son. All of the drawings of Petzi eating crepes forced me to make crepes this weekend (yes, forced me... my life is so tough).
These were good in the morning, but the best part has been having extras in the fridge. I pull one out, spread on some Nutella, and zap it in the microwave for 20 seconds and they are as good as new.
I've used a few different recipes in the past, but I really like this one from Beth Hensberger's Bread Bible. It is extremely simple.
Crepes
Makes 15 to 20 crepes
3 eggs
1 cup whole milk
2/3 cup water or light beer
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons melted butter (add a dash of salt if you are using unsalted butter)
Mix everything together with a blender, hand mixer, or whisk until it is smooth and the consistency of cream. Cover with plastic and refrigerate.
Lightly grease a skillet or crepe pan and heat over medium heat. Pour a scoop of batter onto the pan and tilt the pan to spread the batter around (or use a plastic scraper to do so). After a minute or so flip the crepe over and bake until the other side is slightly browned, 30 seconds or so.
Serve with whatever filling you like. We did Nutella and black current jam. Both were excellent.
As I mentioned, leftover crepes can be wrapped in plastic and stored in the fridge for a good long while. We actually didn't have any left over, but I made a second batch the next morning because we enjoyed them so much. It is almost time for me to make a third batch!
If you want to try and interesting variation, try putting vanilla into the mixture and then use brown sugar, cinnamon, and finely chopped walnuts as the filling. HEAVEN!!!!
There is a family tradition at my house involving crepes. We make it for birthdays and for some reason never make it until another birthday (maybe because it just wouldn't seem right?). Anyhow, the recipe I use is from "The Joy of Cooking" and it doesn't have butter in it. I really like the way it comes out, and it has a pale color (unless you keep it on longer, then it's golden brown to burnt!). I have never seen another crepe recipe without butter before and was wondering why most have it. Is it just a taste thing?
What kind of pan are you using Christina?
If I make crepes without a little butter, they always tend to stick to the pan... the other option is to butter the pan everytime I make another crepe, which isn't very convenient. I think the butter makes the crepes a bit more tender and they also keep longer than without it. And ohh... that buttery taste! :D
If you enjoy sourdough, you might like to try these, http://www.recipezaar.com/136074
I like these spread with a good jam.
Thanks for that link. I just made these this afternoon and they are very delicious. We used a shrimp salad with fennel & celery seed, ham & cheese, mango and Meyer lemon/powdered sugar for the choices of fillings. They all dissapeared! Quickly.
i have been making crepes a lot these days for my cafe. I use pure olive oil for the fat component of the batter and canola spray for the pan I add the batter to the pan at the first fine waft of visible smoke. The most popular filling just now is smoked chicken in a sour creamy wine sauce (plus chicken stock,spring onion, garlic and dijon mustard and seasonings). We place a little cranberry sauce on the filling, then slices of camembert and topped with mashed kumara flavoured with tangelo zest; and then the crepe is rolled up and heated in the microwave if ordered. i sell heaps!
We made them again this weekend with a raspberry sauce and nutella. Soooo goood! Messy though:
What an awesome picture! Worth a thousand words!!
I had to check out this thread. I just bought a blue-steele crepe pan and made the most to-die-for rasberry chocolate jam. Thinking some crepes are in order.
Is it best to make the batter the day before or is it ok to make it up that morning?
The recipes says to make it up the day before, but I've done it the morning of and never noticed any ill effects.
Floydm,Your photo depicts sheer ecstacy. I love it.Some of my grandkids are coming down for Christmas, so I will try Nutella and (we're coming into summer here) and mashed fresh raspberries and probably ice cream. Yum! They love pancakes and are Nutella fans. And your crepes look light and velvetty too!
MHO...
These 4 are standard offerings in San Francisco where I used to live. Most of the crepe bars will make them...Nutella and Strawberries
Nutella and Banana (YUM!)
Peaches, Vanilla Ice Cream and Almonds
Baked Apples with Brown Sugar and Cinnamon
And my 6 personal "inventions..."
Pumpkin Butter and just a little Maple Syrup w/walnuts
Fresh Pears and Dark Chocolate Syrup (To DIE for)
Blackberry Jam and Almond Butter (Kid friendly, best inside cold left over ones, rolled.)
Blueberries and Whipped Creme
Mandarin Oranges whipped with Whipped Creme, sprinkled with a tiny bit of candied ginger, drizzled with melted Dark Chocolate
Pistachio Ice Creme, Fresh Mint Chopped, Dark Chocolate Fudge Melted
Last two I made up for crepe parties I gave, for a "fancy" dessert kinda thing...
Also I will quite often add in cocoa, for chocolate crepes, a bit of dried ginger, some cinnamon, or various extracts into the batter, depending upon how "gourmet" I want to get.
I also have several savory non-dessert ones I do, but I'll post those seperately.
These ten are all my own thing, made mostly for crepe parties, dinner entrees, or for personal breakfasts.
I love warm crepes in the morning and serving them to guests! I also like to make the following in small batches and serve them with crepes a la carte on a "crepe bar" as it were. Some of thebest, easiest, and most popular dinner parties I ever gave involved nothing but making a batch of crepes and these fillings.
Baked Ham, Smoked Gruyere Cheese with a dash of cracked pepper.
Boar's Head Rosemary and Sundried Tomato Ham with, Cheddar, Scrambled Eggs and Rosemary
Maple Sausage with Scrambled Eggs and shredded hash browns. (Yes, IN the crepe.)
Sliced Rare Roast Beef, and Melted Cheddar with sauted carmelized thinly sliced onions
Shrimp, Garlic Butter Sauce, Andoulle Sausage and a dash of Cajun Spice
Carrots and potatos sliced thin mixed into a bit of crushed ginger, crushed garlic, paprika, orange zest and butter
Potatoes and carrots diced with curry butter sauceand peas
Venison with portadello or cap mushrooms in a wine sauce (Note, you could use thinly sliced beef, but venison sure is tasty in season!)
Chicken, melted swiss cheese, and ham with a bit of rosemary.
Meatballs with Mozarella, sundried tomato sauce, garlic, oregano, basil. (Sounds weird, I know, but it's LOVELY. So's chili and cheddar on a cold day.)
Actually you can throw just about ANYTHING into a crepe except maybe pasta and it will taste good. The thing to remember is to keep the fillings thinly sliced if they involve meat or veggies., and go LIGHT on the spices, otherwise they will overwhelm the crepes.
I'm actually thinking about writing a crepe cookbook with these actually, so give me credit if you publish them elsewhere for some reason, will ya?
I'm Sana offline, so if you see "Crepes by Sana" in the next few years out there, that's moi. I probably have about 50 great recipes in my head for them, ones made up by me, and I have often thought that they'd make a great cookbook if I can get a publisher. I've sent out a few book queries with the 50 recipes, so far nada, but I'm hopeful...
:)
My fave filling:
One cup of blue berries simmered with juice of one lemon and one table spoon of suger. Every now and then, mash the blue berries and stir. Once you have a thick syrup remove from heat and cool for a bit.
Fold syrup into room temp cream cheese.
Smear the filling into a crepe, roll and sprinkle with powdered suger. Yum.
I'm drooling just reading through these posts! Oh sooooo good. I'm making some this weekend...just decided.
These are my favorite sweet crepe fillings:
melted chocolate with rum, sliced and roasted almonds or hazelnuts and sliced banana, strawberries, peaches or raspberries
melted chocolate, pears and vanilla ice cream
whipped cream, sliced and roasted almonds or hazelnuts and caramel or maple syrup
Our best selling crepes just now are smoked chicken in a creamy white wine sauce (with other ingreients) wrapped with Brie and cranberry sauce. The range of new ideas also submitted here are interesting and innovative but in some cases mind-boggling!
I'm not sure if you're talking about my suggestions above, but if you are?
Well, have fun trying them out!
:)
I firmly believe in playing with my food! Out of self-preservation I taught myself to cook out of books when I was a kid and I've been experimenting ever since. I'm serious about wanting to do a crepe cookbook. Soups, good breads, and crepes, I could cheerfully live on, and I often do!
The above are only a few of the ones I've tried over the years.
I started out doing the traditional kind of filling, but being an ethnic food fan I soon decided to try filling them with some non-traditional fillings.
It's not only been fun, but it's worked amazingly well.
My suggestion?
Take some of your favorite dishes and improvise with crepes in place of rice, potatoes, etc.
Some things likely won't work, but you might just be surprised at how many delicious combinations you can devise.
Crepes are very versatile lil things...
:)
Actually, i was. But then I live in another part of the world than you. I understand your point of view though; and that one doesn't have to rely on published recipes for great crepe fillings. One which I am going to introduce in my cafe is viz. 2 flat crepes on which will be placed a fruit salad of mangoes (tinned), fresh pineapple and kiwifruit, maple syrup and topped with grilledsmoky bacon. It tastes really nice because I have pinched the idea fron another cafe miles away from mine!
How long is the Dough meant to be refrigerate-ing?
couse all that stands is "Cover with plastic and refrigerate." :x
However long you've got. When I plan ahead I refrigerate the batter overnight, but other times I've only done it for 15 minutes until the griddle got hot and didn't notice any difference.
Ah thanks for the info ^.^
My favorite crepes are banana nutella. And I love the pictures. I wasn't able to find that many crepe recipes: http://www.fasteasyrecipe.com/dishes/recipes/crepes
OH!! No wonder these kids look so happy!! They look so good!! on the menu for tomorrow.
I love savory crepes, esp. those filled with creamed spinach. Several nights ago I made creamed kale using a 1 pound bag of Trader Joe's colorful kale strips. I can't tell you how good that kale was--even better than spinach. I bet that would make a great filling too.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/creamed-kale-recipe/index.html
--Pamela
Pamela, I love to sneak healthy things in food that my kids think are just something neat and not God forbid "good for them" ! They love spinach artichoke dip ( they think it's just good dip !) They might just love this as well. I have tried egg rolling, tortilla-ing, ravolli-ing everything healthy under the sun. I know the recipe wasn't meant to sneak good foods to children, but I will take the help where I can get it! Thanks for the idea Pamela.
Audra
Livign in Brittany France we make our savoury crepes out of ble noir flour which I think is akin to your rye flour or buckwheat? its just a mixture of500 g of buckwheat flour 2 eggs salt and water all mixed together by hand, you just keep going until you have a batter that is creany but not too liquid then leave to rest preferably all day . We don't use butter except to grease the crepe pan. crepes will freeze well if you layer them with grease proof paper between each.
One of my favourite crepes is the classic Crêpe Suzette, prepared by topping the cêpe with sugar, orange zest and/or juice, and some Grand Marinier liqueur. Light the liqueur to evaporate the alcohol and carmelize the sugar, and serve. Yum!
It's my favorite as well Andrea, but you don't find it on menu's anymore, and is so simple to make as you say. Guess I will have to try it tonight again as you have reminded me of it!
I have a good recipe for Crepes Suzettes that I learned from Rosemary Tedesco, a woman that I took a bunch of cooking classes from we lived in San Jose in the mid to late '70s.
Crepes a la Paris
1 1/4 cups flour
4 eggs
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup rum (optional)
Melt butter. Cool slightly and add to beaten eggs with flour, rum, sugar and lastly, milk. Beat till smooth. Make batter one or two hours before making crepes, and refrigerate.
Crepes can be made well ahead and kept refrigerated with wax paper separating each one.
To cook, put small amount of butter in crepe pan. Laddle batter into pan and swirl to make a thin pancake. when browned, lift edges carefully to loosen and turn carefully with spatula or better still, flup into second pan on another burner. Second side cooks in less than a minute.
Makes 24 crepes
Orange Sauce:
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
1 cup fresh orange secions
Melt butter, add sugar, juice, and peel, simmer slowly about 10 minutes. Add oranges and liqueur.
Orange Butter:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
Beat butter into sugar and add liqueur slowly. Spread on each crepe and fold in quarters (this can be done ahead). Heat sauce in chafing dish until bubly and hot. Add folded crepes one at a time dipping both sides in sauce.
Heat 1/4 cup brandy until vapor rises. Light with match and pour over crepes.
Serves 6 (two crepes each)
--Pamela
That is definitely going to be tried this weekend! Sounds quite divine. Thanks!
and if you don't have time to make them, you can always swig the 1/2 C of GM, and think you made them - after a 10 minute autolyse :-)
Will be either making them or thinking I did soon enough.
My Welsh grandmother used to make this recipe to celebrate her grandchildren's birthday. She served it for dessert, instead of a cake.
The recipe as she wrote it.
1 qt. milk
4 cups sifted flour
7 eggs
1 cup water
1/2 tsp. salt (my guess, she mentions adding salt in the directions, but forgot to specify how much in the ingredients)
currents, butter and granulated sugar (for topping)
To one pint of the milk add sifted flour and salt. Beat until smooth. Add the rest of the milk gradually until the batter is quite smooth. Beat eggs and mix with the batter.
(She doesn't mention adding the water, I think it's a "just-in-case" the batter seems too thick, at least that's the way I've treated it.)
To bake:
Put enough oil (she used Crisco) to just cover the bottom of a frying pan. Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom (not too thick). Sprinkle currants over the batter. Brown lightly. Turn, once only, and brown other side.
Remove to a large plate, butter top and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Stack one on top of the other.
(I remember she was very emphatic that they only be turned once.)
Serve warm.
Grandmother used to serve it like a torte, cutting wedges of the stacked froice like one would a layer cake.
I've used a crepe pan, oiled with unsalted butter, and soaked the currents in rum or brandy. Haven't made them in many years, but your discussion triggered fond memories.
David G
My kids always loved crepes hot, sprinkled with sugar, rolled and drizzled with maple syrup. Dave
My Mom made crepes in Poland and so my whole family including grandkids make them.
Naleśniki z serem
Crepes with cheese filling.
For crepes use your favorite recipe
Use dry cottage cheese if available if not
1 lg creamed cottage cheese, rinsed and drained well
use immersion blender and break down the curds into a smoother consistency, but not to make a liquid
add sugar or sweetner to taste
1/2 tsp vanilla
nutmeg to taste. blend well
fill crepes and enjoy
Can be baked with a 1/2 c orange juice poured over the crepes at 325 until warm- cheese will melt slighly
We made Naleśniki z serem just the other day using a white farmer's cheese we picked up at a Russian market in our neighborhood. Agreed, they are wonderful.
Are you Polish?
We used to have the dry cottage cheese when our church made cheese pierogi, but it got too expensive - so they just make saurkraut and potato-cheese pierogi. Since the small Polish market closed - no more dry cottage cheese. I tried ricotta but the flavor is not the same. Rinsing the cottage cheese works very well. Sweeten the orange juice if you wish.
How do you mix your cheese?
My wife Dorota is Polish, so I try making things like naleśniki and makowiec from time-to-time.
I use the farmers cheese from the Russian market and base it on the recipe from The Art of Polish Cooking: add a little sugar, vanilla extract, and orange or lemon peel. It isn't very sweet at all.
My family and I love pancakes so that's what we've been eating all these years. Until last week I came across this post and decided to make some for breakfast. I had a SD sponge going for breads so I used a little leftover to make the crepe batter. Topped the crepes with fresh raspberries, banana, canned peach, whipped cream, and a dust of powdered sugar. So little did I know the two boys went crazy about crepes! I was late home tonight so I decided to make breakfast crepes for dinner. You've got to see their faces. Never thought eating breakfast for dinner could be so exciting! LOL
It looks and sounds seriously great. But it's such a pity that I have to wait till next week to make it.
Mum limits me to two things a week.(I'm 11) *Sob*
We got a crepe pan for our wedding last month and then went to Annapolis to Sofi's Crepe's in Annapolis (full menu of options here: http://www.sofiscrepes.com/menu.html) and now I'm all gung ho for crepes that I don't have to drive to annapolis for (plus i need to do something fun to feed my friends who bought us awesome wedding presents and a crepe party sounds divine!) How picky are you about the whole milk? We usually keep skim in the house? Would upping the butter content work or adding a dash of cream fix it or just skip it?
I was amazed at the number of naval acadamy guys who were wolfing them down, Sofi's delivers to the academy even! It made for a lovely date with the husband and I, marshmallows are the best ingredient for inside.
-l.
I make the crepes with skim milk and add water as the dough thickens while frying and by gosh, I use oil instead of butter and they are still yummy. mushrooms sauted with mincd onions is a great filling , a sauce with cream of mushroom soup with your fvorite spices such as rosemary in both mushrooms and sauce. to pour over..