Buckwheat crepes

My teen had one request for her birthday–breakfast in bed. And she wanted crepes. Mr. Squid usually handles crepe duty around our house. See he can flip the crepes in the air and have them land right back in the pan. Mine tend to land on the counter, when they don’t fly off to the floor.

But I’d been wanting to try a new buckwheat flour crepe recipe. At the Cleveland’s West Side Market one of the most popular booths is Crepes De Luxe, which touts their “authentic, Parisian style” crepes. (If you go, just ask someone to point out where “the crepe place is” then look for a long line.) I find that buckwheat crepes are thicker, bigger and heartier than your all-purpose flour variety. I like it. Usually buckwheat crepes are reserved for the savory fare. And you can use this recipe for a savory meal, I’ve melted fontina and roasted asparagus in these crepes for dinner. But this time it was all about something sweet for a special breakfast.

Notes:

I don’t use a crepe pan, I just bake ‘em in my regular, non-stick 9″ saute pan.

Recipe

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cleveland's Crepes De Luxe

Servings: about 15 crepes in a 9″ pan

Ingredients

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/3 cup water

2/3 cup flour

2/3 cup buckwheat flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

2 teaspoons sugar (optional)

1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender, puree until smooth. I didn’t use sugar, but you could if you want these a little sweeter. (I was saving some for dinner and I don’t like too-sweet desserts anyway.)
2. Refrigerate the batter for 30 minutes to an hour.
3. In a 9″ saute pan or crepe pan melt 1 teaspoon butter to medium-high heat.
4. Pour about 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan and swirl until it stretches out over the pan. Cook until the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 60 seconds then carefully flip. I no longer try to toss mine in the air, but rely on a large spatula.
5. Cook for 45 seconds on the other side then transfer to a plate. Repeat with the rest of the batter, placing pieces of waxed paper between the crepes so they don’t stick.

To serve:

For a sweet crepe I keep it simple: I cut up strawberries and let them sit in a sprinkling in sugar and fresh lemon juice while I was preparing the crepes. On the plate I swirled Hershey’s chocolate syrup just for decoration then slathered Nutella on the still-warm crepes. I also tucked strawberry slices inside before rolling them up, placing them on the plate and garnishing them with another strawberry and a sprinkling of powdered sugar, just cuz.