Crêpes

Every year on July 14th I make crepes. I guess it's my way to celebrate French food on France's national holiday (Bastille Day). Anyway, it's a fun tradition and everyone loves crepes. I love how versatile they are whether they're for dinner or dessert. This is the recipe I've been using for the past 10 years (tweaked a little of course). It mostly comes from my most trusted cookbook: The Better Homes and Gardens red and white checkered book. I love that cookbook. I hope you and your family grow to love making and eating these as well. Maybe you can have a flipping contest. Bon appetit!

Click here for printable recipe. 

The Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 cups milk (divided)
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbs. oil

The Directions:
Add flour and sugar to a bowl. Add 2 cups of the milk and beat until the lumps are gone. I have a friend who does this in the blender, but I like to use the beaters. Add in eggs and mix in. Add vanilla and oil. Blend well together. This will be a bit thick, but that's ok. It's easy to add milk later. Not so easy to make it thicker later. (trust me, you can't thicken it up later by adding more flour). Put it in the refrigerator for minimum 1/2 hour or until you use the batter. Before cooking you can add up to another cup of milk as needed to get it to the right consistency. (You want it more runny than cake batter. It should stick to your spoon a little when you drizzle it back into the bowl. Heat nonstick pan or crepe pan to medium high. Moisten a paper towel with oil and use towel to grease the hot pan. Keep this in reserve because every 6-8 crepes you'll want to re-grease the pan. Non stick spray doesn't work that great because it gets too hot.

Anyway, get a 1/4 c measuring cup and take your pan in one hand, and the measuring cup in the other. Pour the batter slowly into the pan slowly tilting the pan in a clockwise manner. (I'm right handed, so it may be different for others).
If you find that it's not covering the whole pan then get a little more batter to fill in the holes. Work quickly because that batter has already started cooking on the hot pan.You'll know it's time to turn it over when it starts to get a little brown and lacey looking on the edges or bubbly in the middle. It will take a little more than a minute. I like to use a non stick spatula and slide it under the crepe to loosen it in order to flip it over. I found this nifty tool at IKEA and it works great. I hear there are actual crepe flipper things, but I haven't seen one...yet. When you loosen the crepe from the pan then you can use your spatula to flip it or do a quick flip of the wrist and flip it in the air. (Fun for the whole family)
Keep in mind that the first crepe is almost always a ruined one because you're still gauging the temperature of the stove. As you are cooking, you can gradually turn the stove down a little if they are getting too brown.

Once flipped over to the second side, it will cook a lot faster than the first. Like 30 seconds. I have always piled them on a plate. I've read that you need to put wax paper in between each one, but honestly I have never had a problem. Probably because they've always been eaten right away. If you're saving them for later or planning on freezing them, then by all means separate them with wax or parchment paper.

Creativity time:You can put whatever you want on your crepes. Nutella is always a popular favorite. But so is fruit preserves, fruit pie filling, pudding, whipped cream, PB & J, PB and Nutella, sugar and lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar...the list could go on. This is where it get fun for all ages because everyone likes them in a different way.

This is my husband's. Nutella with whipped cream down the middle. He folds the it around the whipped cream and hopes that it doesn't come squishing out the other end.
This is one of my boy's. Just plain Nutella.
Another boy likes the combo of (PB) and Nutella (we don't have Peanut butter because of allergies, but we have this delicious spread called Speculoos that tastes like gingersnap cookies. But I'm pretty sure you can't find it in the States. If it does exist then I will be so excited). But I can tell you that PB and Nutella tastes like Reeses peanut butter cup.I personally love cherry pie filling, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. But then you'll have to eat it with a fork.

There is no wrong way to eat a crepe. However, I have learned that it is good crepe etiquette to take the crepe off the pile and put it on your own plate first before spreading stuff on it. Just so you know.

NOTE from Lara:  We love eating our crepes with scrambled eggs, crumbled bacon, and a little sprinkle of cheese.  :)

Enjoy!


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