Tuesday 26 August 2014

Crepes for Dinner!?!?!?!?!

It's a bit random, but I decided to make crepes for dinner. My mum sometimes did this for me and my brother when we were little and on special occasions, like birthdays and on Pancake Tuesday. But I had a sudden onset of cravings for crepes. So I begged mum to make them, but she said to make them yourself, so I did. This recipe is titled pancakes, but are more of a crepe consistency. They are from my mum's cookbook; ' Stephanie Alexander, The Cook's Companion'.
In our family (there are 4 of us), we have 3 or 4 big crepes each, so my mum usually doubles the recipe as it does not make nearly enough. I will put the original recipe on here, and if you make them and want quite a few, just double all the quantities.

Ingredients:
- 250g of plain flour
- 60g of butter
- a pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 cups of milk
- 3 eggs

How To Make Them:
1. Put flour into a large bowl, and make a well
2. Heat butter, milk and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat until butter has fully melted
3. Break eggs into the well, and stir into the flour (it's going to get really thick and sticky, but when you add the milk it gets better)
4. Gradually add the warm milk mixture and whisk until smooth (you can use an actual whisk if you want a really good workout, but I just used an electric mixture to make sure there are no lumps)
5. The mixture should be like thin cream, and if it's not, then add more milk ( it doesn't have to be warm)
6. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cooking.
Cooking
7. Heat a frying pan on medium heat (preferably a non-stick frying pan, and use one that is the size that you want your pancakes to be)
8. For the first pancake, and after you've cooked a few, grease the frying pan with butter, oil, etc.
9. Lift the pan away from heat, and ladle in the pancake mixture, tilting the pan to spread it evenly and then put it back on the heat
10. After about a minute, lift the outer edge of the pancake, to see if it's cooked ('cooked' is when the underside starts to brown)
11. If it's not cooked, then set back down, but if it's cooked, slide a spatula underneath and flip the pancake over onto it's other side (flipping is hard, but it gets easier with practice!)
12. Cook for a little bit less time on that side, until the base is also browning, and then serve
13. Enjoy!

I like my pancakes with lemon juice and butter, or Nutella, or maple syrup. You can also have savoury ones like smoked salmon, cream cheese and spring onions (that's what my mum usually has), but really you can put on whatever you want! These are pretty easy to make and turn out really well!



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