Crêpes, the recipe!

This is a very simple basic recipe, and this is the one I use all the time. Then, according to your taste, you can add other ingredients.

Basic recipe:

– Put the flour in a salad bowl. Add, gradually, the milk. Mix, if necessary, with a hand mixer.

– Then add the eggs, and mix again.

– Ideally, let the batter sit a little before starting to cook the crêpes.

How to cook them?

– If you have a “crêpière”, a frying pan made for crêpes, it is perfect, because it is much easier. But crêpes can be cooked on a usual frying pan.

– Let the frying pan get a bit warm, then add oil and spread the oil using paper towel for instance. The secret is to wait until the frying pan is warm enough, before adding the batter.

– With a ladle, take some batter and incline the frying pan to allow the batter to spread on the whole surface. Let the crêpe cook to your taste, then return it, to cook the other side. Lower the heat, and put the filling of your choice, on one half of the crêpe.

– Fold the crêpe, cook it to your taste, and that’s it!

Optionnal ingredients:

– sugar: it depends of what you intend to put in the crêpes, if it’s only sweet ingredients, it can be nice to add sugar, or vanilla sugar.

– alcohol: a bit of rum can add flavor to the batter. My grandmother used to add beer, it adds taste and it also make the crêpes lighter, thinner. If you want to add beer, you can replace a quarter of the milk by beer.

– vanilla or almond extract, orange blossom water: a few drops.

Precisions:

– I like to use spelt flour, I think the taste is better!

– In some recipes, melted butter or oil are added, I haven’t noticed that it was necessary but it is an option.

– Ideas of salty fillings: grated cheese, goat cheese, ham, bacon, mushrooms, eggs, salmon, fresh herbs…

– Ideas of sweet fillings: chocolate, jam, sugar, lemon juice, honey, nuts, cooked fruits, chocolate spread, Chantilly cream, raisins…

– In some regions of France, salty fillings are rather used with another kind of crêpes, sometimes called “galettes”, with a different recipe and buckwheat flour.

– My favorite crêpes if you are looking for ideas:

– cooked mushrooms, crème fraîche, fresh parsley, ham and cheese.

– cooked pears, melted dark chocolate and frangipane (a kind of almond cream).

And you, what are your favorite crêpes?