How To Make Crepes

Name: Crêpes (How To Make Crepes)
Yield: 10
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: ¾ cup plain flour; Pinch salt; 1½ cups milk; 3 eggs, lightly beaten; 50g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing

Whether you’re wrapping them around a savoury filling or making a dessert like crêpes Suzette, the aim with crêpes is to get them as thin as possible. This comes with practice and a good pan. Start with a heavy based, low frying pan with sloped sides that’s reserved just for crêpes and pancakes; mine is about 26cm (10″) wide with a 20cm (8″) base, which works well. Clean it thoroughly, then season it by heating some oil in it until it’s quite hot, wipe it out with paper towel then repeat this two or three times. Never wash it, just wipe thoroughly with a wad of paper towel after using, and your crêpes should never stick. Until you’re confident, use a lower heat and lift the pan off the heat when pouring in the batter, this gives you more time to swirl it around the pan before it sets. Timing will depend greatly on your pan and the cooking temperature, but this recipe makes plenty of batter, so you’ll have enough to practice with – and even misshapen crêpes taste good! Once you know how to make crepes, use them in salmon Wellington, creamy seafood crepes or chicken and mushroom crepes.

Makes 8–10 x 20cm (8″) crêpes

Ingredients

¾ cup plain flour
Pinch salt flakes
1½ cups milk
3 eggs, lightly beaten
50g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing

Method

Sift flour and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre.
Combine milk and eggs and slowly pour into the well, whisking to incorporate the flour; stop whisking as soon as all the flour is incorporated.
Stir in butter and strain into a jug.
Heat a heavy-based frying pan over a medium heat and grease with very little butter.
Stir the batter, pour in just enough to coat the pan, swirling quickly to cover the base evenly.
Cook for 1–2 minutes, until the edges begin to curl and the base is golden brown.
Loosen the edges with a silicon spatula, then use your fingers to turn the crêpe and cook for a further 30 seconds or so, until golden and dry.
Slide out of the pan onto a clean plate.
Repeat with remaining batter, stirring before each crêpe and stacking cooked crêpes on top of one another.