I’ll show you this recipe for French Crepes and tell you more about it below.
French Crepe Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 Large Eggs
- 2 C Milk
- 1¾ C Flour
- 1 T Sugar
- 1 T Vanilla
- 2 T Melted Butter
Instructions
The French Crepe Batter
- Crack the eggs into the blender and blend on low for one minute.
- While the blender is running, slowly add the milk and flour. To do this, alternate between adding about 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 of flour. Add the flour gradually. If you add the flour too quickly, it tends to clump up instead of blending smoothly.
- Add the sugar, vanilla, and melted butter. Blend until smooth. Note: it will be a thin, runny batter.
Cooking the French Crepes
- Pre-heat your griddle to medium heat and treat with cooking spray.
- I use a 1/2 C measuring cup to both scoop the batter and to spread it evenly on the griddle.
- Use the bottom of the measuring cup to evenly spread the batter into a circle.
- Cook until the top of the crepe no longer appears wet. This may be 1-2 minutes. Then flip and cook for about 1 minute.
- You can make two crepes at a time on a griddle.
Background to this French Crepes Recipe
I grew up in Henderson, Nevada. My dad grew up in Pleasant Grove, Utah. I had heard stories about his best friend from Pleasant Grove, Tom, but never met him. Tom lived with his family in Hawaii. One day my dad announced that we were going to go to St. George because Tom and his family were moving there. We were going to help them put in sod and Tom’s wife was going to make us her signature dish–french crepes.
That is my first memory of trying French crepes. It also happens to be my first memory of laying sod. If I had to choose between eating french crepes and laying sod, I would choose french crepes. But actually laying sod is not that bad. I prefer laying sod to pulling weeds.
It turns out my kids also prefer eating french crepes over laying sod or pulling weeds. French crepes is one of the things my family eats that is universally loved. If you’ve ever raised 6 kids, you know that is hard to come by.
Over my years as a parent, I’ve gradually compiled a Google Doc of recipes that my family likes to eat. I call it the “World’s Best Recipe Book.” This is because whenever I search for a recipe online, I usually type “World’s best [whatever it is] recipe.” Unfortunately, I do not recall where all of these recipes came from. Some of them are from random websites and some of them are from friends or family.
This French crepe recipe has been in my book pretty much since the beginning. I do not recall where it came from.
Some say it miraculously appeared.
The Downside of Making French Crepes.
I have 6 kids, so 8 people total–2 parents, 6 kids (and 2 cats). I have to double this recipe to make all the French crepes people want.
The problem with crepes is that the crepe itself takes up a lot of space on your cooking surface.
So, for example, if I were making pancakes over the griddle, I could fit 8 four-inch pancakes at a time. If people each want 2 pancakes, that is two rounds at the griddle. Each turn at the griddle takes about 3 minutes, so that is 6 minutes total at the griddle.
With French crepes, I can only fit two crepes at a time on the griddle. Now if people want 2 crepes each, I need to spend 8 rounds at the griddle. If each round takes 3 minutes, that’s at least 24 minutes. (And my kids want more than 2 crepes each).
And that’s just the time with crepes on the griddle.
Ultimately, making crepes for the family turns into a big time commitment in comparison to other breakfasts. And most recipes I see online have you using one pan! That would double the time to make all the crepes you need.
Because of the time it takes to make enough crepes, we only make these for special occasions such as birthdays, holidays, or vacations.
What to put on French Crepes
Obviously, there are no hard and fast rules. You can use sweet toppings or savory one. I personally have never had a savory crepe. It just doesn’t interest me.
Here are some ideas based on what we like to put on crepes:
- Maple syrup
- Caramel syrup
- Whipped Cream
- Cinnamon Sugar
- Berries
- Bananas
- Peaches & Cream
- Nutella
- Peanut Butter (but not with jelly because I only think that’s good on sandwiches)
- Jam
- Pudding
Again, the limit for French crepe toppings is your own imagination.
