Have you ever had sweet crepes for lunch as a main course? It is a quite a thing! The first time I had jam filled crepes for lunch was in high school, about grade 11. It was at my landlord’s and tetka Dusanka made me 10 jam filled crepes with a layer of whipped cream to top it up! As she served them to me, she was still continuously baking and offered me more if I like! Wow, was that a magic dream come true or what!
Crepes filled with jam are my all time, old fashioned favorite. Our moms used to make this as a basic default dessert when they were missing more delicate and harder to get baking ingredients. Especially at times when we wanted something sweet and good, and fast. However, as a rule, my mother would have never have served me sweets as a full course meal, that was a big no no. That experience had to be reserved for my first year as out of home student, at the place I stayed. Lovely times and some great memories!
That was a long time ago and I have never repeated a similar experience ever since, that is until recently: I decided to make crepes Suzette, a famous French classic. This is the recipe that I stumbled upon many times, but for one reason or another never followed through and made them. Finally they got their place on the menu for last weekend’s lunch. What can I say, it was beautiful!
This simple and traditional French crepe recipe is dominated by an orange flavor being its prime and main characteristic. Orange juice is part of the crepe filling and crepes are also flambéed in Grand Marnier brandy. It is a full course meal, it can be, or at least that is how I served it.
In brief; Crepe Suzette were subtly sweet and aromatic. They were not as rich as the crepes from my high school days, but were equally as enjoyable. Maybe age has to do something with that, I am not a teenager any more and subtle sweetness and aromatics tend to win over the rich and sweet that I craved in my youth.
The recipe has been adapted from a famous French cook Jacques Pepin.
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crepes
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- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup all purpose non bleached flour
- 2 eggs
- 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup filtered water as needed
- 85 g unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 medium size organic orange scrape the zest of one whole orange
- 1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
Ingredients
Crepe batter
Orange Butter
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- Over medium heat (5 out of 10) melt 3 tbsp of butter on a 9"-10" non-stick skillet.
- In a medium size mixing bowl add flour, eggs, salt and sugar. To avoid lump forming start with adding 1/4 cup of milk, whisk until smooth. Add the rest of milk in two more additions, whisk until smooth. The batter should be fairly thin and if it is not add more water as needed.
- Whisk melted butter to the batter.
- Ladle about 1/2 cup of batter to the baking pan. The pan is hot so you will have to do the following quickly and decisively: 1. pour the batter not in the middle, but the top or the right side of the pan. 2. Pick up the pan by handle and quickly tilt in all directions allowing the batter to spread evenly across the pan. Do not worry if you end up with some holes, you can just ladle some additional batter to close them. Cook for couple of minutes.
- Use a fork to check if the bottom of the crepe is done.
- With fork fold the edge of the crepe, grab the crepe with both hands and turn over. Cook for about another minute, transfer to a clean plate.
- Repeat the process with the rest of the batter, stack the crepes up on the same plate.
- In a food processor fitted with metal blade, process together butter, sugar, orange zest and orange juice. Process for about a minute until smooth and uniform. Transfer the processed butter to a small bowl.
- Over medium low heat (3 out of 10) melt about 2 tbsp of orange butter in the non-stick skillet.
- With both hands grab the top edge of a crepe and lift it up. Dip the bottom half of the crepe into the melted butter and fold the other half over it. Fold it again to 1/4 and leave the crepe in its corner to repeat the same process again.
- Repeat the process with another 2 or 3 crepes (depending how many will fit in the skillet), leave them all tightly packed, side by side in the skillet. Keep cooking for a few more minutes, keep turning crepes until slightly caramelized.
- Add dash of Grand Mariner liquor to the skillet and flambé.
- Transfer crepes to a serving dish.
- Repeat the process with the rest of the crepes and serve warm!
- As an alternative assembly procedure (shown on my pictures) you can add 1 tsp of orange butter per crepe and arrange folded crepes on a serving dish sprinkled with sugar. In a small saucepan heat up 3 tbsp of Grand Mariner and 1 tbsp Cognac, flambé and pour flaming sauce over the arranged crapes. Serve immediately.
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