Crepes

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Saturdays I like to make breakfast and eat as a family. Sometimes my husband takes over the job of making breakfast, but most of the time I do it. This morning is Easter so I changed our weekend breakfast day to Sunday this week. I made crepes. I love making crepes because they are super easy and super yummy!
Crepes are a specialty of the Bretagne region of France (Northwestern France). They are like a very thin pancake cooked in butter. Crepes are typically served as a dessert or a street food in France. If you walk around Paris, you will find a crepe vendor or two on every major street. Crepes are typically served sweet with your choice of jam, Nutella or butter and sugar. There are also restaurants all over France called "creperies" where you can have a meal of crepes. In creperies you will also find the larger version made out of buckwheat called "galettes" and those are typically served with things like cheese, eggs, spinach, mushrooms, and ham. Typically I make crepes in my house for breakfast, but sometimes I make them for dessert or I make savory crepes for dinner.
I have a special pan called a "crepiere" that I got in France, but they also sell them in kitchen stores here in the USA. You don't need a crepiere to make crepes though, any small and shallow frying pan will work just fine. The key is to make sure your pan is really hot. Here is my recipe for crepes that comes straight from my French family in Paris.


Sweet Crepes
2 cups flour
2 cups luke warm milk
2 eggs
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. melted butter
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp vanilla (optional- I like to add a little vanilla but it is not essential to the recipe)
Extra butter for cooking


Whisk all ingredients together to make a smooth batter. Let rest for 30 minutes. Heat your crepiere or frying pan on the stove on high until it is hot. Turn heat down to medium. Add butter to the pan and spread around to make sure the entire surface of the pan is covered with butter. Remove the pan from the heat and ladle 3/4 - 1 cup of batter into the pan. Swirl the batter around to cover the bottom of the pan. Return the pan to the heat. The crepe is ready to flip when the surface starts to look dry. This happens very quickly. Carefully loosen the edges of the crepe and flip, be very careful as the crepe is thin and can tear easily. Cook on the other side for about a minute and remove crepe to a plate lined with aluminum foil. Stack crepes one upon the other as you cook them and cover each time with aluminum foil to keep them hot.
Serve with your favorite jam, nutella or just with butter and sugar!
One more note about crepes : crepes should never be rolled. It is bad form in France to roll your crepes, instead, fold them into a triangle or a square!


Hope you all have a nice Easter! Until next time Foodie Mommies and Daddies, happy cooking!



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