The other day I was chatting with a friend and mentioned that my youngest had crepes for breakfast (yes, I know – spoiled).  The friend said that he was taking his wife out for crepes for her birthday.  Out?  For thin pancakes?  Really? 

If I can roll out of bed and make crepes, ANYONE can make crepes.   Trust me.  If you look at a bunch of recipes, you’ll  note that the ratio of ingredients is more or less standard.  It pretty much goes 1 cup of flour to 1 cup of milk/water to 2 eggs, a bit of salt, and a few tablespoons of melted butter.   You may also note that they like to blend all the ingredients.  In most cases, I do not want to use a blender at 6:30 am. 

My recipe is slightly different…anyone surprised?).  First of all, only Brian wants crepes for breakfast, so even if I halve a recipe, it’s still too much.  Yes, of course I could just freeze or refrigerate the rest for the next day, but…I haven’t tried that yet.  So, this leaves me with the issue of halving the egg.   My very elegant solution?  I don’t halve it.  Who’s in charge here?

To make my crepes you need:  an 8” non-stick pan (critical to success), various utensils, a 2-cup glass measuring cup, a paper towel on the counter ready to receive your crepes.  1 egg, 1/2 cup of flour, about 2 tbs each of water and milk (I use skim), a dash of salt, 2 tsp of sugar, a whisper of butter, about 2 tbs cup of seedless raspberry jam (or whatever you like) and, if desired, whipped cream or powdered sugar for the top.

Beat the egg and sugar and salt in the cup until  light yellow and fully mixed.  Stir in the flour.  Add water and stir – trying to get a smooth batter.  Add the milk.  My batter comes to just over the 3/4 cup mark.  It should be like cream – easy to pour but have some heft.  

Heat the non-stick pan over medium heat.  Put in a tiny bit of butter (I usually just slide the stick of butter over the pan).  Wait for it to bubble.  Fold up a paper towel and wipe out the excess butter.  Save this paper towel.

Pour the batter into the middle of the pan so that it is about 1” from the sides.  Swirl the pan so that the whole bottom is coated.   Sometimes the first one isn’t perfect because my  batter is too thick, I poured too much,  or the moon isn’t in Aquarius.  Don’t sweat it too much, remember, it’s going to get rolled up anyhow.

These cook pretty quickly; it’s time to flip with the top has mostly lost its gloss.  Slide a spatula around the edge and peek underneath.  You want to see a brown speckled underside and have the crepe lift easily from the pan.  Grab the crepe with your fingers and flip it over.  If it tears, it wasn’t cooked enough – learn from it.  Cook the 2nd side just 30 seconds or so, check the color, then slide it out onto the waiting paper towel.  Use the paper towel that took the excess butter out of the pan to clean up any dried bits.  I get 3-4 crepes out of this recipe depending on how awake I am.

Once the crepes are done, I spread the jam in a thin layer on each crepe and roll.  If I sprinkle mini chocolate chips on the fresh from the pan crepe and then some chopped banana, it makes me very popular. 

You can take this recipe, swap the sugar for an herb of your choice, and fill it with just about anything to make a savory crepe.  Maybe even some leftovers and then sprinkle the top with cheese and pop it under the broiler?  Hmmm.  I may have to make a whole batch next time…