Perfect Crepes

I am always filled with awe whenever this French treat graces my plate.  Which is not often.  I did get to enjoy them on a number of occasions when my family lived in Montreal, Quebec.  And, I have been blessed with exactly one opportunity to order the real thing, once upon a trip to Paris, circa 2004.  However, my life has been significantly lacking in crepes for the past several years, so I decided to put an end to the famine and look up a recipe. 

How hard could it be?

Not hard at all, as it turns out. 

In fact, it was so simple and preparing them went so flawlessly that I felt like somebody else had stepped into my kitchen.  Believe me, my cooking blunders could quite easily fill a book; one which I would title How NOT to Cook, and that would more than likely be a bestseller.

So here, with credit to one of my favorite go-to recipe sites, is a ridiculously easy recipe for crepes.

Here is what you will need:

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp butter, melted

First, put 1 cup flour & 2 eggs in a large bowl.  I used my favorite Pyrex batter bowl which is perfect, because it has a pour spout on the side for direct transfer to a pan later.

Whisk together the flour & eggs.  It will be a big clumpy mess & will all be stuck inside your whisk, but never fear.  It will come out! :)

Next, gradually stir in the milk and water.  I poured in 1/4 cup at a time, which seemed to work perfectly for making sure it was thoroughly mixed in & for de-clumping the ingredients stuck in my whisk.

Then, toss in the salt & melted butter.  Whisk it all together so that it is smooth and well-blended.  Put a little elbow grease into it so that you don't end up with a clumpy mess on the bottom.



Here's what I started with - and ended up with a few ingredients later!

Heat a lightly greased pan over medium high heat. 

(I just used a drop of extra virgin olive oil between each crepe, to make sure they wouldn't stick.  I try to stay away from vegetable oil or aerosol sprays wherever possible.)

 Pour about 1/4 cup of batter into the pan.  Tilt the pan and rotate it so that the batter covers the bottom of the pan.  Depending on the size of your pan, this may require slightly more batter.  This will create a very thin layer on the bottom.  Don't worry - it'll come off! :)

Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, or until the bottom is a light brown.  Loosen it with a spatula and flip it over.  (A thin metal spatula works best, and actually you may find that the edges start to curl up a bit & you won't have to do too much work to flip them over in one piece!)





I can't believe how easy this is........





This recipe makes 4 large crepes.  The original one that I printed promised 8, but I ended up whipping up an extra batch of batter half way through my cooking.

Serving suggestion:

We love breakfast for dinner, so I filled my crepes with bacon and scrambled eggs, seasoned with a pinch of salt & pepper, Italian seasonings, and a small can of Rotel (drained).  I topped mine off with a little A1 steak sauce. (Don't knock it til you've tried it!)  Oh, and a baked sweet potato on the side, which went surprisingly well with the rest of the meal.

It is worth noting that it is significantly harder to fry bacon if you don't have a smoke alarm in the kitchen as a backup timer.  The bacon in this picture can be identified by its charcoaled edges.  Still good!

Mmmmmmmmmmm...



Perfectly easy crepes!  Accident-prone chef tested, guinea-pig taste testing husband approved!