make crepes and make friends
You guys, you guys. Have you ever been to a music festival? In addition to beats, good company, crappy camping and hippies, they also feature food vendors. And this is how I discovered The Skinny Pancake, a Burlington VT original. I haven’t yet made a pilgrimage to their restaurant (Vermont is kind of a hike from Massachusetts), but they have some incredible crepes that you can recreate at home without tie-dye bedecked strangers eyeing your breakfast.
First, we have The Heartbreaker.
I think you can see where we’re going with this. My crepes are not like those served by the Skinny Pancake, but they still benefit from nutella, strawberries and bananas. And apples too . . .
. . . but we’re getting to that. Now mix up your favourite crepe batter.
And let it stand, covered with plastic wrap, for 30 mins before go time. On a side note, I fucking hate whisks, but crepes are the one food item they serve well instead of becoming a clumpy hard-to-clean nuisance. When the time is right, heat up 1/2 tsp of butter in your largest skillet, and pour enough batter to cover the bottom without the batter on top being runny.
Do a little swishy swishy with your pan, and pour back to the bowl whatever isn’t stuck to the pan. When your crepe starts to bubble and the bottom of it is browned, give it a flip. This will happen a minute or two after liftoff.
Now immediately, I reiterate, immediately get about half a tablespoon of Nutella on there. You want this to get melty, and the longer it’s on your crepe, the meltier it’ll get.
And then toss on your strawberries and banana. You don’t want a lot of these, and you’ll see why, looks like I used about 2 strawberries and one third of a banana.
Now give that side a minute or two to cook, then begin the folding process.
You want a tri-cornered hat looking thing reminiscent of colonial America. And this is the reason you want to go light on your fruits, it won’t fold up right if you aren’t conservative. Now flip that monster over for about thirty seconds to let the oozy coat the other side of the crepe.
Serve to your favourite breakfast guests.
We’re almost done! The Green Mountain crepe was a big hit festivalwise as well, so I did that one too.
Your story starts out the same, and, as with the Nutella, you wanna get your sharp cheddar slices on there immediately after flipping and for the same melty reasons.
Now the apples.
Do your foldy bit.
And you know the rest.
Do you put anything cool in your crepes? Do you have an excellent crepe recipe to share? Please do! I have a feeling these are going to be a Saturday morning tradition for some time to come, and will try anything that sounds reasonably delicious.
I actually had a crepe at The Skinny Pancake this past summer and I have been meaning to re-create it since. It was a crepe with an egg and cheddar cheese inside and it was awesome!
Another dessert crepe I often do is I take whipped cream put it in the center of the crepe in a line and then lay on top of that strawberries that had been mixed in and sitting in sugar and then i roll the crepe and then add more whipped cream and strawberries on top, it’s really good as well.
have you ever tried ken shopsin’s crepe recipe? he basically dips a flour tortilla in milk then fries it on a griddle.
My favourite crepe filling is bananas and caramel with cinnamon and some grated chocolate or sprinkled cocoa powder. Mmm… that’s an idea for this Saturday. Whee!
The next time you come up, we should totally go to Silver Moon Creperie. It’s right here in Drrty Dovah! 😀
I tried prosciutto with tomato, basil, and a combination of mozzarella and havarti. Sprinkled a bit of pepper… heating it up really brings out the good flavor of prosciutto.
ooooooohhhhhh those look delicious! i love the pictures!
Crepes, nutella and strawberries, my idea of heaven!
Your pictures are beautiful, and your recipes are right up my alley! Can’t wait to make these crepes for the company that’s coming this weekend!
willa – no kidding! That’s too cool! Good ambience? Worth the trip?
mwbass – that uh, sounds totally gross. But you know, if it works for you, you can wrap whatever you want in there.
amanda – that is 100% a dessert crepe to me rather than a breakfast crepe. And that gives me an idea for my next dinner party. =)
steph – DONE!
yuan – you have excellent taste in cheese, and the idea on a whole sounds just lovely.
heather – thanks! I do what I can. 😉
jules – RIGHT?!
Istone2 – let me know how they go over!
beautiful, and kudos for the mise en place of ingredients. the tri-fold crepe is very parisian no? or so i thought…
my favorite crepe insides includes green tea ice cream and chocolate syrup… nothing skinny. we japanese people love to add ice cream to everything.
Thanks for your comment on my blog – I’m happy to find yours! 😀 Your photos are amazing! Especially the strawberries – makes my mouth water.
This is the best kind of street food that was served in the festivals in Germany during Christmas. Love it the best with bananas and nutella- all hot and melty! I like your apple and cheese version, wow! Thanks for stopping by and making a comment on my Jalapeno Poppers!
My friends and I are suckers for peanut butter and bananas, so we are huge fans of PB & B crepes. With whipped cream, of course.
Also, I just wanted to say that I absolutely love your blog! Your pictures are amazing, and your tone is hilarious. Nice work. 🙂
Oh my god this is so lovely and so well captured thro your eyes! Just adore thos crepes. . . . yummy delicious! awesome!
I was your friend before I ever even SAW the crepes…
These sound positively fabulous!
I have to make sure I make crepes and not creeps! :O
Ok, you’re apparently a master crepe folder! If I tried this, mine would somehow end up on the floor. I love Nutella in crepes, but I am so digging that apple and cheddar combo too!
i love to put just about anything and everything in crepes! especially savory ones like yuan mentioned.
gerry’s favorite combo when i make crepes is to put nutella, peanut butter and bacon inside. num!
All of your photos are absolutely stunning! I am adding you to my blog roll 🙂
This looks really good. I copied the recipe and I’m going to look through your others. Crepes will make really nice homemade breakfast (or dessert, yum chocolate.)
: )
For a really sweet dessert crepe, try one with a Bananas Foster filling. It goes especially well with vanilla ice cream and is extremely decadent.
I usually do just strawberries with a little bit of sugar in my crepes. But another one I love is Granny Smith apples with cinnamon. Mmmmmm…
I recently made 200 crepes with my friend for an event and we were beginners! The nice French couple who taught us showed us several different fillings. One crepe had nutella, plain yoghurt and bananas. Another was cooked on a fry pan, partially covered with a lid. It was like a pizza and had an egg on top with cheese, sour cream and bacon. It was surprisingly good. The best crepe I had was at a Toronto creperie called Crepes a Gogo. It was filled with melted brie, uncooked spinach, strawberries and maple syrup. Sounds weird but it was amazing.
Growing up, my mom would sometimes make crepes for dinner. And she always put cottage cheese in them. It wasn’t til like high school that I realized most people knew crepes as a desert-y fruity type food. I still think cottage cheese is delicious in crepes. My mom would put a bit of vanilla extract in the cottage cheese and fill them, roll them up and sometimes put jam or cinnamon sugar on top. I honestly like them plain. Or with green tea ice cream like ila said! and then wrapped up cone shaped like this: http://d1.biggestmenu.com/00/00/80/fec4bbbcee515b7f_m.jpg
Ugh. I do not know why America has not embraced the ice cream crepe. (:
hiya! i’ve stumbled across your blog and i must say you made me hungry, even though i’ve just finished dinner 🙂
as for crépes, we have a few traditional dessert fillings here in Hungary. “túrós” is cottage cheese with a little sour cream to make it smoother, some sugar, vanilla and some lemon peel.
or there’s “almás”, where you boil some milk, sugar, cinnamon and grated apple until it’s thick and spread it onto the finished crépe. you can also put some grated apple into the batter.
Hyuk! I ate this at this.. umm.. French food place, I thought It was pretty hard to make(nah, im being sarcastic. But i hope it doesn’t offend anyone)! After seeing this, I think i’ll make it for my parents today.
They might like it.. But i know i will!! :b
Mmm. This is making me hungry! I go to UVM and LOVE that the Skinny Pancake is right downtown. [Earlier in the year I had a delicious crepe that had brie and apples in it! Another time, I had feta and spinach.] Definitely a great place to go for crepes. Gorgeous pictures, as always!!
The best thing in or on crepes that I have ever had/made was honey-sweetened whipped cream. It doesn’t last long in its whipped form on warm crepes, but it is just amazing. I layered it with some apricot jelly and rolled the crepe up around it. Soooo good.
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