Have you ever tried buckwheat?
I must say, I'm not a huge fan of baking with it in breads: it has a nutty, hard-to-miss flavor that often overpowers other ingredients (like banana or pumpkin). However, buckwheat works perfectly in these super simple crepes.
Also, buckwheat is really healthy, and gluten free! It has a lot of protein and fiber, which is why these crepes are so satiating. It's not a grain (though it acts like one); it's actually a seed. Buckwheat is rich in manganese and magnesium, and many of the B vitamins. For more things to do with buckwheat (including buckwheat groats, which are often toasted and called kasha), look here.
Crepes are basically just super thin French pancakes, and they are perfect for breakfast, either savory with eggs or sweet with jam, nutella, or fruit. They work for dessert too, with sweet fillings and some whipped cream or ice cream, and I've started using them as wraps for lunch, with turkey, guacamole, and veggies, as a gluten-free and corn-free alternative to torillas. Because they are thin, they are pliable and don't break when you fold them (especially when they are warm), meaning they are good rolled up or folded in half.
After my travels in Europe this summer, I really became obsessed with savory breakfast crepes. Not only are these easy, but they are pretty low cost too, and since you can fill them with whatever you want, you can use what you have on hand.
Some of my favorite options:
Saute cherry tomatoes and spinach until the spianch wilts, and then add eggs and pesto.
Cook an egg with ham, potatoes, and fresh basil
Turkey, spinach, and guacamole
Roasted butternut squash, black beans (slightly smashed), sauteed onions and garlic with sage and S&P (always good if you have leftover butternut squash, which is really easy to roast and keep in the fridge)
Sunflower seed butter (my new favorite spread) or almond butter, strawberry jam, and toasted coconut
The classic, with nutella chocolate chips, bananas (optional), and whipped cream (stay tuned for an easy coconut dairy free whipped cream!)
Honestly, the options are limitless, and you can use whatever you have on hand.
The crepes keep well in the fridge (which is why they work well for lunch the next day), but if they aren't fresh, you might need to microwave them for 10 seconds to make them more pliable.
Now for the crepe recipe!
Crepes are super easy to make because they only require 3 ingredients in a simple ratio. I'm all about ratios because then you can easy replace some of the ingredients with ones you have on hand. Ratios are the basis for my favorite kind of cooking, which is essentially experimenting with a base recipe in mind. Food52, a wonderful and prolific blog that's also a great reference for understanding the art (and science!) of cooking, endearingly terms this "not recipes." Once you have a "not recipe," you can experiment and make it your own (and impress other peope with your cooking skills).
So here is the ratio for crepes (in ounces, i.e. weight): 1 part flour to 2 parts eggs and 2 parts milk. That's seriously it. For me, this means a little less than a cup of buckwheat flour (4 ounces), 4 eggs (8 ounces or 1 cup), and 1 cup milk (I use almondmilk or coconut milk, but any dairy or non-dairy alternative will work fine).
Let me clarify the ounces measurement. There's a difference between the ounce and the fluid ounce, which can be especially confusing for us in the US because we use all the wrong units (as a physicist I have a problem with not using the metric system as basically everyone in the world does). Basically, even though they have similar names, ounces and fluid ounces are very different. An ounce is a measurement of weight, meaning to be the most accurate, you should use a food scale. A lot of people swear by food scales, and if you feel like buying one, I'm sure many people would applaud you for it. I don't have one because they can be expensive, and honestly I don't have much more of a reason that that. If you have a scale, use it for this recipe (to measure weight in ounces). If not, you can approximate like I do.
First of all, here's a helpful list of the weight of one cup of different types of flour. If a cup of flour is a little more than 4 ounces (buckwheat is 4.25 ounces per cup), use a few tablespoons less than a cup. Similarly, if you are using a light flour, use a little more than a cup. (The best thing about ratio-based cooking is often they don't have to be exact. If you make your first crepe and it's too thin, add a little more flour.)
Four eggs works well, because it gives about 8 ounces. For the milk, I just use a cup because it's simple, even though a cup is 8 fluid ounces, which is not really equal to 8 ounces. The reason they get confused so often is because 1 fluid ounce of water weighs 1 ounce, so many people think that the measurements are the same. For milk, which is just a little denser than water, the difference isn't that noticeable. For something like honey though, 8 fluid ounces is equivalent to about 12 ounces in weight, so the difference is significant. (Luckily we aren't dealing with honey, and we can ignore the differences, unless you want to be picky and use the food scale approach.)
So again, that's 4 ounces flour, 8 ounces eggs, and 8 ounces milk for abotu 12 crepes. In normal US measurements, this is about 1 cup flour, 1 cup eggs (4 of them), and 1 cup milk. The ratio by weight is 1:2:2; the ratio by volume is approximately 1:1:1.
So now that you know the ratio, you can experiment! Sometimes I add vanilla extract and a little sugar or cinnamon and nutmeg for sweet crepes; fresh herbs work well for the savory ones.
What do you like to put in crepes? Let me know in the comments!
Buckwheat Crepes
Makes 12 crepes
Ingredients
4 ounces buckwheat flour (about a cup minus a tablespoon)
8 ounces eggs (4 eggs, or a cup of egg whites)
8 ounces milk (I like unsweetened coconut milk or almond milk, but any milk works fine)
Directions
1. Mix all the ingredients well, so there are no lumps. The batter should be pretty thin. If it is too thick, add more milk.
2. Heat a large pan over medium heat and spray with cooking spray (I use coconut oil spray because it can withstand high heat).
3. Pour about 1/4 cup of the batter in the pan and swirl the pan to coat. Let cook for about 3 minutes, until bubbles begin to break on the surface.
4. Using a spatula, flip the crepe (it should release easily). Continue to cook for about 2 minutes. Store in the fridge.
Nutrition information uses almondmilk.
