How to Make Savory French Crepes
The Video
The Story
Hello and welcome to episode TWO of Dawn Be That Way, featuring guest star (and cousin) Evie MacRunnel with whom I will be making SAVORY FRENCH CREPES!!!
Evie and I were super close friends growing up. She even came to visit me when my parents and I moved to France in '96. That is where we both discovered the amazingness of French pastries and crepes.
They're fun to make, and for practical reasons better than pancakes, because you can do them in advance and they don't lose any of their pizzaz. Seriously, left over crepes are the best. Even cold. Just put a little Nutella on that bitch and you got gold.
So here's how you make them and a list of ingredients taken from The Pancake Handbook. If you don't own this cookbook, you need to. It's got everything a breakfast-lover could ever want in it.
The Ingredients
...for the batter
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup medium-bodied beer
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup buckwheat flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
...for toppings
3 eggs lightly scrambled (but not cooked)
1 cup gruyère cheese, grated
1 pack of bacon
Stonewall Kitchen Roasted Garlic and Onion Jam for garnish
Day One
Make the batter. Combine all the wet ingredients in a blender. Blend until super smooth. Add the dry ingredients. Blend until smooth. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Booya.
Day Two
Wake up. It won't feel good, but you have crepes to look forward to, so make an effort.
Start by heating up a pan for BACON because you'll feel better when you smell that cooking.
Get the batter out of the fridge and whip out your handy-dandy crepe pan. Personally, I'm in love with this one - been using it for years - but any ol' non-stick pan will suffice. I just find that a crepe pan simplifies the dreaded flipping process.
Oil your crepe pan and wait for it to get hot.
While you wait, get started on the bacon.
Also, I suggest putting the plates you'll be eating on into the oven at a low temperature so that the food stays hot while you eat it.
Now that your crepe pan is hot, ladle batter onto the pan and quickly rotate the pan until the surface area is covered with a thin layer of batter. Wait a minute till the edges have browned and you can free them up with a spatula.
Flip the crepe. Ruin the crepe. Flip another crepe. Ruin that one. Call your mom for emotional support. Flip another crepe. Eventually it will work and you will have made your very first beautiful crepe.
Let it cook for another minute on this side and then put it on a plate. When you've made a few crepes (or all of them), put one of them back onto the pan and add toppings!
You'll want to turn the heat down a little at this point, as you want the ingredients inside the crepe to warm up, but you don't want to burn the crepe. Drizzle some of the uncooked egg onto the crepe, top it with some cheese and bacon, fold the crepe over, and wait a minute for everything to warm up.
Take one of your hot plates out of the oven and slide the finished crepe onto the plate. Top with a dollop of garlic-onion jam and enjoy your delicious savory French crêpe with eggs, gruyère and bacon!
If there are leftover crepes and no one is looking, have one with Nutella and bacon. Then go back to bed because that was the best part of your life.
