I know, sounds a little cliché, right? Well that's what happened. Luckily, I had no pressing appointments or classes that I missed this morning. So I took advantage of the late morning and decided to attempt the improbable: Making Crepes.
Ah, Crepes! The beautiful, lovely, paper thin slices of heaven that originate from France. You can fill them with anything you choose, fruit or ice cream, chicken, and the classic Nutella filling. Even chocolate tastes better inside a crepe! But why do I want to pay three dollars for one or two when I can make 12 at the same price? If I picked out a simple, but yummy recipe, like this one it would be a cinch.
Or so I thought.
Mine looked nothing like the picture. At all.
My crepes this morning were initally were a disaster. They were undercooked, or greasy, or they cooked way too fast and became tough and gummy. I had two out twelve that were mouth-worthy, and frankly, I was frustrated. I am usually sort of close to the way it should taste or look like on the first try.
I learned three things about crepes that really pertain to real life. There are the three P's of Crepes. Precision, Patience, and Persistance. Well, I don't know if the first P really works in real life, unless you're an über control freak.
Precision: The Crepe is a very fragile food. To avoid doing run arounds the kitchen when your butter doesn't temper well into the mixture, make sure everything is room temperature or slightly cooler before you start cooking. It doesn't have to be room temp, just make sure everything is about the same temperature.
I also found that mixing the ingredients in a blender on low gets everything nice and even without bringing too much air into the mix.
Patience: Make sure to take your time with the crepes. The recipe says that cook time is about twenty minutes, but it took me a lot longer. At the beginning, my pan was not hot enough, during it became too hot, and was perfect heat during the last two crepes. It's just like pancakes in that sense, use common sense: too cool? turn up the heat a little. Too hot? remove from flame or source and let the pan cool down a tad.
And crepes need constant babysitting. Let it sit on one side until the edges are dry (and i mean bone dry, they should be turning golden brown) and bubbles show up on the face up side. Make sure that the crepe on the bottom is golden brown. DO NOT FLIP UNTIL IT IS GOLDEN BROWN. That may take anywhere from a minute and a half to 2 minutes.
Persistance: Don't give up! I was so close to throwing in the dish towel when none of them were coming out right, but that's when I started to learn new things about my kitchen. My pans tend to be too cool or too hot, so I have to play with the flame until I find the sweet spot. If this is your first time with crepes, it probably won't turn out right, just take your time! Keep at it!
And be sustainable, don't discard the egg whites! Make an omelette. I don't really like eggs, but I hated the idea of throwing out perfectly good food. So, I scrambled them.
Next stop on the TCKimmi cooking channel: making an egg white omelette that doesn't make me want to yak.
Bon apetit, readers!
