Crepe Option

So, if you're family is anything like our family, the breakfast menu is limited and repeated too often: pancakes, muffins, waffles, oatmeal, french toast, repeat. About once a month or so, on the rare lazy Saturday morning, we pull out the stops and make hash browns, scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage, AND pancakes. Or something like that. And it takes about two hours to make breakfast, and we end up eating it for lunch. But it's so tasty, we don't care. 


But anything that adds variety to that most important meal of the day without taking forever to prepare, I'm happy to know it.


So last week, when Gabba decided she was going to do breakfast, she went riffling through my cookbooks, and found a recipe for crepes. I actually have two crepe recipes, but the one she found is the one my mother-in-law copied down. I've had the recipe since my marriage (she made a whole cookbook for Mark when he left on his mission, and I basically inherited it when I married him), but have truly never used it. Ever. 


Gabba didn't know this. If she did, she would have been too intimidated to try it. But she made up the batter, and cooked up a bunch of crepes (all on her own, I must add, with no previous experience or instruction), and they were gobbled up almost before they hit the plate. So I helped her make a second batch. Which was snarfed down just as quickly. We actually ended up making three batches of crepe batter that morning. And when everyone was done eating, there wasn't a crepe crumb in the house. So, I'm thinking: success!


We've had crepes three times since then. We double the batch, and I may need to rewrite the recipe to accommodate little chefs who can't reliably do recipe math yet. 


But anyway. Last fall, my sister-in-law, Erin, introduced me to a phenomenon called buttermilk syrup. Oh dear me. So, with the crepes going like gangbusters, I decided to combine the two. Oh heaven. Oh, tastiness. Oh gluttony.


You need to try this. Some lazy Saturday morning (when you have an over-abundance of eggs, milk and butter in the fridge), do yourself a favor and try this.


Cindy Galbraith's Crepe Recipe (un-doubled, as it appears in my cookbook in her original handwriting)
1 to 1 1/4 C. flour
2 T. sugar (optional)
pinch salt
3 eggs
1 to 1 1/2 C. milk
2 T. butter melted
1 t lemon extract (optional)
Blend ingredients. Heat slightly oiled skilled. Pour small amount [I use 1/3 C.] batter in center of hot skillet and tip to spread it thinly over bottom. Turn to cook other side.  


And - of course! - you need the buttermilk recipe. This isn't Erin's, but I can tell you one of my kids ran off with the empty pan to scrape it clean, so make your decision based on that...

1 1/2 C. butter
1 1/2 C. buttermilk
3 C. sugar
1 t. vanilla1 T. baking soda

In large saucepan (make sure it is big enough to accommodate the syrup foaming when the baking soda is added), combine butter, buttermilk, and sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring regularly. Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla and baking soda (it will foam up at this point.) It is now ready to serve; keeps for at least a couple weeks if you can manage to not use it all up quicker.

Obviously, this is the kind of thing that needs to be balanced with half a pound of raw broccoli to accompany each serving, but I'm pretty sure we're going to be less broccoli and more pan-licking. Enjoy!