Crêpes (French)

A simple crêpe batter that'll allow you to whip up French crêpes for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Pancakes are simple. They're diner food. They're what you make on a Sunday morning with the kids. Crêpes are fancy. They're French-bistro food. They're what you make once a week after your Parisian vacation because you want to relive some pleasant memories. This dichotomy has always struck me as really, really odd, because the fact is that crêpes aren't hard to make. They require fewer bowls and tools to dirty and wash, and they're much faster to make. It's easier to adapt them to either sweet or savoury fillings-making them ideal for breakfast or dinner-and, best of all, you can make crêpes ahead of time, even by a few days, without losing quality. The only intimidating part of making crêpes is spreading the batter thin enough in the pan, and, granted, that's something that takes a bit of practice. The good news is that even if your early crêpes have funny lumps and bulges or aren't paper-thin, they're still gonna be plenty edible and delicious.

Making the Crêpe Batter:
Recipes for crêpe batter don't vary all that much, other than in the exact ratio of ingredients and how they're mixed together. I admit that in the past, I've tended to eyeball ingredients, but recently I've become more methodical, sticking with the ratio that Daniel developed for his crêpe-style manicotti: two eggs, a cup of flour, and one and a quarter cups of milk.

Those crêpes are designed to hold on to a moist filling and get baked under a sauce. I like my regular crêpes a little more tender, so I add a Tbsp. of melted butter to the batter as well. For flavouring, I add a pinch of salt, plus a bit of sugar if I'm cooking sweet crêpes, or sometimes a handful of minced fresh herbs for savoury crêpes.

For bringing the batter together, the blender is your friend: Dump in the ingredients and hit go. Fifteen seconds later, you're ready to start cooking. It's the method I've been using for decades.

Still, for the sake of completeness, I tested it against the bowl-and-whisk method. Using a bowl and whisk produces slightly less aeration in the batter, which in turn leads to slightly denser, smoother crêpes. Crêpes made in the blender will end up with teeny-tiny bubbles throughout.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, some crêpe recipes call for soda water as an ingredient, specifically to try to get more of those tiny bubbles. Even with a bowl and a whisk, you can get them if you whisk vigorously enough.

Does Crêpe Batter Need to Rest?
Some folks insist that resting crêpe batter for half an hour or even overnight before using it can improve texture and/or flavour. When I was testing out Yorkshire pudding recipes a while back (Yorkshire puddings are made with a batter almost identical to crêpe batter), I found that resting the batter overnight had a dramatic effect on how well the puddings rose, as well as how deep their flavour was. With crêpes, the difference wasn't so obvious.

Crêpes are not cooked until deeply browned, like Yorkshire puddings are, so they don't really get that complex toasty flavour. Crêpes are also typically served with a very flavourful filling, so the actual flavour of the pancake itself is not quite as important. As a result, I never bother resting my crêpe batter.

How to Cook Crêpes:
To cook a crêpe, you have a few pan options. A carbon steel crêpe pan is the classic choice-its shallow, highly tapered edges make it easy to get leverage under a crêpe when you're ready to flip it-but unless you make a ton of crêpes, I don't recommend buying one. Instead, just use a good-quality nonstick pan.

I like to cook my crêpes in a little butter, which gives them a nice, golden-brown colour and lacy-looking surface. I rub a thin layer into a preheated skillet, then wipe out all the excess with a paper towel.

Next is the tricky part. There are a couple of methods for pouring and spreading crêpe batter. At those fancy crêpe shops with the gigantic cast iron griddles, you'll see cooks using a wooden spreader to push the crêpe batter into a thin pancake. That's pretty impractical at home.

When I make them, I hold the preheated pan in one hand and the blender jar full of batter in the other, then I quickly pour a few Tbsp. of batter into the center of the pan and immediately start tilting and swirling it to spread the batter out into a thin, even layer. You are absolutely bound to get a few thick and thin spots using this method, but nothing world-ending.

The other, arguably simpler technique is what I call the "pour-out" method: Pour in way more batter than you need, swirl the pan once to get a coating all around, then immediately tip the pan and pour any excess batter right back into the blender. You end up with a very thin, even coating of batter in the bottom of the skillet, with a single deformed protrusion where you poured the batter back over the side of the pan. If you're a first-time crêpe-maker, this might be the method for you.

Once the batter is in the pan, I set it back over medium heat without moving it, then let it cook just until the top surface has set and no longer looks like wet batter. This takes all of 15 seconds or so.

Flipping crêpes with a spatula is dangerous, since the delicate pancakes can tear easily. Much better is to gently release one edge with a thin metal spatula, then pick up the crêpe with the fingers of both hands, gently laying it back in the skillet to lightly brown the second side.

All in all, the crêpe should spend no more than 30 seconds in the skillet, after which you'll be immediately ready to start the next.

How to Make and Store Crêpes Ahead of Time:
One of the handiest features of crêpes is that you can cook the pancakes all the way through and refrigerate them, to be reheated and stuffed later. Hosting a brunch on Sunday morning? You can knock the lion's share of the work out of the way on Saturday, then fill crêpes for your guests to order, if you're so inclined.

To do it, once you've cooked your crêpes according to the above method, stack them on a plate and store them under plastic wrap (or under a second, overturned plate) in the fridge. They'll keep there for up to three days. When you're ready to go, just reheat each crêpe briefly in a nonstick skillet before stuffing.

How to Fill and Fold Crêpes:
The simplest form of crêpe-stuffing is so easy, I'm not even gonna bother showing you a picture: Spread a filling on them and roll them up.

Classic combinations would be butter and jam, or butter, sugar, and lemon juice. Try them with Nutella and bananas, or strawberries and whipped cream, or simply folded and stacked and served with butter and maple syrup, American-style. You can also spread crêpes with a filling and stack them up high, without folding them at all, to form a cake that can be sliced into wedges.

Basically, any filling you'd use in an omelette can be used in a crêpe, though crêpes are presented a little differently-a classic stuffed crêpe is folded into qters. Here, I'm stuffing mine with spinach, sautéed with red onions and tossed with crumbled feta cheese. I start by mixing all my stuffing ingredients together, then spread them over half of a crêpe.

2 large eggs
1¼ cups whole milk (10 fluid oz; 280 mL)
1 cup all-purpose flour, unbleached (5 oz; 140 g)
1 Tbsp. melted unsalted butter or vegetable oil (½ oz; 15 mL)
pinch kosher salt
1 Tbsp. sugar, if making sweet crêpes (8 g)
1 Tbsp. minced fresh herbs, such as; parsley, tarragon, chervil, or chives; for savoury crêpes

For the Batter:
Combine eggs, milk, flour, melted butter or oil, salt, and sugar (if using) in a blender. Start blender on low speed and increase to high. Blend until smooth, about 10 seconds. Add herbs (if using) and pulse to combine. (Alternatively, you can combine the ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk vigorously until smooth.)

To Cook:
Heat a 10" nonstick or well-seasoned cast iron or carbon steel skillet over medium heat for 2 minutes. Lightly grease with oil or butter, using a paper towel to wipe out the excess.

Hold the pan's handle in one hand and pour in 3-4 Tbsp. (45-60 mL) batter, swirling and tilting pan immediately to spread batter in a thin, even layer over bottom of pan.

Let cook until top looks dry, about 20 seconds. Using a thin metal or nylon spatula, lift one edge of crêpe. Grab that edge with the fingers of both hands and flip crêpe. Cook on second side for 10 seconds, then transfer to a plate. Repeat with remaining batter. Fill crêpes as desired (such as with butter, sugar, and lemon juice; with butter and jam; with ham, cheese, and eggs; or with spinach and feta) and serve. Crêpes can also be made ahead and stored, unfilled and wrapped in plastic, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Reheat in a nonstick pan to serve.

Makes 8-10 servings.

Make Ahead and Storage: These crêpes can be cooked ahead of time and stored, unfilled and wrapped in plastic, in the refrigerator for up to three days. Reheat in a nonstick pan to serve.