Traditional French Crepes, and a not-so-traditional filling
Lately I’ve been on a crepe kick. Blame it on my sweet tooth (see Gluten Free Pecan Torte or Chocolate Chocolate Cake if you need a refresher) or on the fact that it’s summer. In fact, I already posted a crepe picture earlier this week on Instagram. And now I’m dedicating an entire post to them.
Crepes are thin, French “pancakes, in laymen’s terms. There are two basic types: sweet and savory. Sweet crepes (i.e. dessert crepes) need no explanation whatsoever other than they are to die for. Savory crepes are crepes with more of a dinner-type filling – mushrooms, spinach, that sort of thing. Also to die for.
Sweet crepes can be stuffed with anything from chocolate to Nutella (yes, you read that right) to fruit. In this post, I’ve stuffed mine with lemon curd. Not a very traditional filling but delicious nonetheless. I first saw this idea on Cupcakes and Cashmere‘s site early this year and remember thinking how good this would taste. I filed it away mentally. Fast forward a couple months and I had forgotten I’d seen it on the CC site. I was making crepes one day and had lemon curd in the refrigerator and thought “Gee, lemon curd would taste great with crepes.” Enter yesterday when it suddenly dawned on me it wasn’t my genius idea after all. Funny how our brains work subconsciously sometimes.
Perhaps I’ve been eating too many crepes after all.
First the traditional French crepes recipe…
Batter will be extremely thin – place in refrigerator to allow ingredients to combine better
*taken from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Book of Desserts
1 1/2 cups milk
2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
In a bowl, whisk melted butter. Add remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours. After 2 hours, grease the bottom of a skillet with butter and heat pan on medium heat. Pour about 1/4 cup batter on bottom and move pan around so batter spreads out. Cook until brown on the bottom and carefully flip over (a flexible metal spatula is best). Cook for a few seconds longer. Remove from pan and place on a plate. Repeat with remaining batter, making sure pan does not stick. Use wax paper between crepes to ensure they don’t stick to each other.
