Crêpes!

Crêpe with onions, mushrooms, ham, and cheese

On Tuesday we celebrated my brother's birthday again (his actual birthday has not yet happened) with a crêpe party! In my family, "crêpe party" means that we pull out the gridle that has six holes for small crêpes so that each person can customize his or her crêpes and the meal goes on.

For our crêpe batter we use half wheat (not whole wheat) flour and half buckwheat flour. Traditionally, savory crêpes (called galettes) are made with 100% buckwheat flour, but the lack of gluten makes the batter hard to work with, and my family's hybrid crêpe batter lets us use the same batter for savory and sweet crêpes!

To make crêpe batter for 4 people (+ leftovers for breakfast the next morning):

Ingredients:

• 100g all-purpose flour
• 100g buckwheat flour
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp salt
• about 360g milk
• water

Method:

1. Mix the flours with the salt in a large bowl. (For some reason my family has a designated crêpe bowl)                                                           
2. Add the eggs and mix with a spoon            
3. Add the milk slowly, stirring between each addition to avoid making lumps (if you do get lumps, give the dough a whirr with an electric mixer)
4. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
5. Add water to the dough until it is liquid enough to run off the spoon quickly (if the dough is too thick to spread when you start cooking crêpes, you can always add more water)

To cook crêpes:

1. Heat your pan with some oil. 
2. Add a small ladle of batter to the pan and either use the bottom of the ladle to spread out the batter or rotate the pan so that the batter is very thin but not broken.
3. Cook one side until the bottom is browned, then flip.
4. Add desired topping if toppings need to melt.
5. Cook until bottom is also browned.
6. Adjust the temperature for the next crêpes if they are cooking too fast or too slowly.
7. Serve.

Remember: the first crêpe you make in the pan is always a failed crêpe. Don't sweat it.

For our savory crêpe toppings we had caramelized onions, sautéed mushrooms, ham, cheese, and eggs. For dessert toppings we had nutella, honey, sugar, butter, bananas, and canned pears.

 

The classic "crêpe complète"  is ham, cheese, and a fried egg. I add onions and mushrooms because onions and mushrooms make everything even more delicious.

 

And of course, as crêpes (galettes) are from Bretagne, they must be eaten with apple cider. My dad found some legit unfiltered and unpasteurized cider at Piazza's that supposedly went very well with the crêpes. (As I am under 21 I obviously did not have any ;)

 And the great thing about making crêpes for dinner is that you get to eat the leftovers with nutella the next morning!