Basic Dessert Crepes

Hi everyone!  Happy Monday/Labor Day!  Today's post is part two of recipes for French dishes in honor of my trip to Europe, specifically Paris, France.  If you missed part one, click here.

Since I've already shared a savory main French dish for you, in this post, I will be sharing a French dessert with you:  crepes!

When labeling this post, I felt bad categorizing crepes as pancakes, but I didn't know what else to call them 🤷.  I guess the stereotype snobby Frenchman would be disgusted at my labeling of this recipe, but that's ok.

While I'm on the topic of the snobby Frenchman, I have a funny story to tell you from my Paris trip. One day on the trip, my family and I went to a French restaurant for lunch and bread was served with the meal.  One of my family members asked the waitress for some butter to have with bread because we're normal people and she curtly replied, "In France, we do not have butter with our bread."  While we were definitely taken aback by her response, we have had some good laughs about the situation since 😂.

So, what are crepes?  Essentially, crepes are the French version of pancakes.  They are definitely different from ordinary pancakes.  Unlike run-of-the-mill pancakes, crepes can be filled with sweet or savory fillings.  Crepes are also much thinner and flatter than regular pancakes.  They also require more technique to make.  When making regular pancakes, all one has to do is plop the batter in the pan.  When making crepes, the batter has to be artfully swirled around the pan so as to create a clean circle.  This brings me to an important point:  to make nicely shaped crepes, you need a crepe pan.  I use this crepe pan.  I'm going to be honest with you:  I do not have much experience making crepes, so the shape of my crepes may or may not have resembled Pangea 😂.

The crepe batter itself is very easy to make; simply blend together a series of ingredients that you most likely have on hand!  Once you cook the crepes, what the crepe can be filled with is pretty much endless, provided that the fillings are sweet. (This crepe batter has vanilla extract and sugar in it, which doesn't sound exactly great with an over-easy egg, right?!)  Some of my favorite crepe fillings include chocolate hazelnut spread with strawberries or banana and French jam (These are super delicious 😋!)  You could even fill your dessert crepes with this apple pie filling.  (Please excuse my terrible pictures 😬.)  Whatever you decide to fill your dessert crepes with, make sure to top them with whipped creme!

I used a crepe recipe from this website to bring you today's recipe.

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram!  I look forward to posting again on Friday 😊!

Basic Dessert Crepes

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 2 tsp. granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, cracked into a separate bowl to make sure no shells are added to the batter
• Unsalted butter, for greasing the pan

1.  In a blender, blend together all of the ingredients except the butter until very smooth.

2.  Refrigerate the batter for at least one hour.

3.  In a crepe pan over medium heat, melt enough butter so that the pan is generously coated.

4.  When the crepe pan is very hot, add 1/4 cup of crepe batter and swirl it around so that the pan is evenly coated.

5.  Flip the crepe when it is golden brown and let the other side cook until it is golden brown as well.

6.  Repeat steps 1-5 until all the batter is gone.

7.  Enjoy, filling the crepes with whatever sweet filling you desire and storing leftover crepes in the freezer for up to one month.