Sometimes you just need to use the boxed mix.
Growing up in a multicultural household, I was often exposed to Czech and Tunisian cuisine by my grandmother. Whenever I asked for crepes, she made these delicious, sugar coated latkes that my siblings and I devoured. But a few years ago, I stumbled upon photos and videos of French crepes online and I was interested. I had had “crepes” all of my life, but had never made these French crepes I saw in the videos.
So I was inspired to try and make these French-style crepes. They were thin, crispy on the edges, and cooked in a pan – not fried in oil and coated in sugar like I was accustomed to.
The countless recipes I found online said that crepes were ultra difficult and that there were several finicky procedures to follow for them to come out right- blending the ingredients, refrigerating the batter, & following other various techniques.
I wondered: “Does it really need to be that complicated?”
I didn’t have much in my pantry except a pancake mix box, and I’ve watched my grandmother improvise countless meals without following a recipe. So I used the mix and adjusted the amount of water it called for on the box to make the batter looser to resemble crepe batter. I poured it on a hot, oiled pan and swirled it around like the professional chefs do. I waited, peeled it off, and flipped it.
And the result was delicious!
Fresh, crispy, crepes that looked just like the French crepes from videos! Could it have been that easy? I was so surprised! Honestly, I treated it like a bigger, flatter pancake!
I still make these today, and I sometimes add vanilla extract to the batter for an extra touch. But really, all you need is pancake mix and water! If the crepe doesn’t come out the first time around, your can simply adjust one of the three variables:
- amount of water
- amount of pancake mix
- amount of oil on pan
and sometimes I add a touch of oil to the batter.
Then, once we make a stack large enough to fill the plates of my family members, we serve them with various toppings, in a sort of “build-your-own” station. Toppings include maple syrup, cinnamon, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, and Nutella hazelnut spread. We also serve fruits such as strawberries & bananas. My personal favorite is a touch of hazelnut spread and some slice strawberries, hence the article title, but- you can really customize them to your personal tastes. I think that is why they are universally enjoyed (and craved and shared by my family members around the table at breakfast).
We hope you can make and enjoy these crepes! But most of all, we hope you will skip these instructions and improvise, like we did! You’ll learn a lot more about the art of crepes and trust in your instinctual cooking / learning ability!
two running foodies 