2009 Goal #4: Crepes

Fluffy buttermilk pancakes. Done that.

Puffy and custardy Dutch Baby. Yep, made that too. (Actually, it's qualified as a new recipe made this year. Will have to blog that later.)

Crepes. Never done it. Until this morning.

I have a little bit of history with crepes. The first I've ever had was one of the several Crepe Suzettes we had growing up. It was my mom's favorite dessert. And of course, in Thailand, they made it table side. With the flambe and all of that, it was a spectacular childhood memory. That and watching my mom watching the table side service, learning how it was done so she could make it at home later...which she did.

She made hers with cognac instead of Grand Marnier because, well, "We already opened the cognac. Until we run out of this, there's no reason to open another bottle." But I totally digress.

Now it's my turn to make the crepes.

This morning, I whipped up basic crepes from The Big Book of Breakfast to fill with Nutella and strawberries.

The recipe tells you to throw everything in a blender and wait 1 hour. I was too lazy and hungry for that, respectively. So I hand whisk everything and sit the batter down for about 10 minutes while I prepped the strawberries and Nutella.

Whisk together 1 1/4 cup milk and 2 eggs. Then whisk in 1 cup flour (whole wheat in our case as I completely forgot to buy AP flour), a pinch of salt, and 1 TBS melted butter.

Voila! Batter up.

Low-medium heat. A dab of butter on non stick pan. Lift up the pan. Pour in batter and swirl. Put pan on heat, let cook. Flip and let cook 10-15 more seconds, and you're off.

Stuff with whatever you'd like. We just happened to have all these strawberries to eat.

The first crepe was scrapped. COD: Inability to swirl the batter around the pan, resulting in "scrambled" cake. First thought to be because of the batter was too thick, so I added a splash more milk. As my experience grew, I think the pan was too hot so the batter cooked up before I could even swirl anything.

The second crepe was also scrapped. COD: Wrong tool to use to flip resulting in structural instability and eventual collapse. (Also contributed to the COD of the first crepe.) Toss everyday plastic spatula. Deploy rubber spatula.

The rest was lots of yummy goodness.