Crêpes

Crepe filling ingredients

Since we got our new crepe pan, Uly and I have been determined to learn to make our own crêpes. The first time we made it, I used this recipe from Epicurious, which worked really well for the sweet crêpes, but was too sweet for the savory crêpe.

This time, I switched to Alton Brown's recipe, which gives variations for both sweet and savory crêpes. It was ok but I think the first recipe was better, especially for the sweet crêpes. I gotta admit...I messed up majorly and forgot to add the melted butter, but the batter still seemed too thick in general. Next time, I think I'll try the recipe from Cook's Illustrated, which has more liquid than Alton Brown's recipe, but a bit less than the Epicurious recipe. I guess Uly and I have a long way to go before we become crêpe experts.

We made 3 kinds of savory crêpes:


Ham, egg & cheese - This is a classic French savory crêpe. I like it better than just the ham/cheese I made the first time, the egg definitely makes it more savory. I put more cheese than last time which made it better, but I think I still prefer the sharper taste of Gruyèreto the Emmentaler cheese we used today. This was probably the best savory crêpe of today's bunch though.





Spinach & mushroom - I've had some version of this at crêperies. I added some white truffle oil to the sauteed mushrooms, but didn't really taste it, I think my truffle oil is too old and lost most of its truffle aroma. I really like the flavor we got from drizzling the basil oil on top, I think next time I'll add some basil and make a light pesto. It was really good, but one thing that was sorely missing is some MEAT! I think I"ll add some chicken next time.





Bacon, egg & cheese - I usually love everything with bacon, but the biggest surprise of all was that the bacon crêpe didn't taste as god as the ham crêpe. It was still good, but I never thought that ham (or any other food) could ever beat out bacon in anything...there's a first for everything I guess.




Since the peach season is almost over, we also decided to take advantage of remaining fresh peaches around and make Bellinis! I just pureed some white peaches (gotta love my immersion blender) and added some prosecco. We got a great deal on Nino Franco "Rustico" Prosecco at World Market, it's usually a $15 or so bottle but they had a 50% off sale. I gotta say this prosecco is definitely a cut above some cheaper brands that I've bought. The drink turned out well, but I think I put too much puree so it turned out a tad too pulpy. Surprisingly, I think the frozen purees from Whole foods work out better, I think it's because the texture is a bit finer than my own homemade puree. I'm still aspiring to make it as good as they do in Bouchon Las Vegas, they still have the best Bellini I've tried. This is still much better than a Mimosa though!




After we finished the savory crêpes, went back to cooking our sweet dessert crêpes, since we didn't want the crêpes to sit for too long. We had 2 different crêpes, mainly because I don't eat fruit, and Uly doesn't eat chocolate:



Strawberry & banana - This was Uly's dessert crêpe. He put a little too much batter this time so it didn't turn out as thin and crisp as the others. It was better the last time he made it (probably because of the better crepe recipe) but it wasn't bad. Because of this, it turned out a little messy...definitely not one of our picture-perfect dishes.






Nutella - I don't really like fruit (unless it's part of an alcoholic beverage, so I decided I'll do another classic, the Nutella crêpe. Good thing we have plenty of this stuff in the lab so I borrowed some to use this weekend. It was really easy and worked out really well...I definitely need to get my own jar of this stuff...it's awesome!




Well, that was our crêpe adventure of the day...I think we probably need several more tries before we can perfect our technique and recipe enough that we can serve this to other people for brunch. I think we're getting there...