A craving for crepes

When we were on vacation in Paris back in April (my first visit there), we bought a couple of small watercolors of city scenes from a street vendor.  It was on the Ile St. Louis, one of my favorite areas in that amazing city - in part, because you'll find Berthillon and their incredible ice cream there.  My husband recently hung those watercolors up and now I gaze at it once in a while and think back on that amazing trip - the beautiful sights and the amazing food we sampled.  I've got a craving for plenty of things we ate on that trip.  I can't begin to replicate most of them at home but I thought I could tackle crepes.

I think of crepes as the street food in Paris.  Being first time tourists there, we were constantly on-the-go and took advantage of crepe stands for a quick snack.  We didn't visit any special creperie; instead, we were regulars at a snack stand near our hotel in the 9th arrondissement.  Those crepes were so simple and so good, filled with nutella or, my personal filling of choice, "creme de marrons" or chestnut cream.  I love chestnuts.  It's a shame they aren't more common/popular here in the States but to make up for it, I loaded up on jars of chestnut cream and brought them back home.  They were everywhere and inexpensive.

I wish we'd had the chance to sample some savory crepes while we were in Paris.  I would've loved to try a buckwheat crepe (made with buckwheat flour, traditionally used for savory fillings).  For now, I'll just add it to my mental list of things to eat next time we visit the city and settle for my own version, which I filled simply with ham and gruyere cheese.

Needless to say, I've been craving crepes!  It's one of those things I've always wanted to try making since my husband and I love them.  Trying to keep it simple at home, I wanted a versatile and easy recipe I could use for both savory and sweet fillings.

I won't bore you with the details on my deliberations for a basic crepe recipe but just tell you that in the end, I settled on a simple one from Cooking Light, which I adapted slightly.

I liked that this recipe uses low-fat milk and just a smidgen (2 teaspoons) of sugar because to my way of thinking, the fillings provide plenty of richness and flavor.  I had some worries about the texture of these crepes using 1% milk but wanted to give it a try.  They turned out soft and tender, a good blank canvas for the filling.  If I were only making sweet crepes next time, I might use a bit more sugar and maybe add a dash of vanilla to bump up the flavor and crispness of the crepes themselves.

I have no technique when it comes to crepe-making, having never done it before, but I learned a lot in this test run and I'm happy to say it was pretty easy!  None of them ripped and I ended up with 13 small crepes to fill with whatever I wanted.  The good news is that leftover crepes can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days, or frozen for longer.  When we were in Paris, many of the crepes at the stands were pre-made and just re-warmed and filled to order with your choice of fillings (sugar, jam, nutella, and chestnut cream were common).  I found this worked just as well at home.

Now all the different crepe fillings were tasty (love that chestnut cream) but I have to say I particularly favored one that I filled with ice cream.  I guess it's not a fair fight whenever you bring ice cream into the picture.  It's just a knockout.

It must be the contrast of warm crepe against cold ice cream that does the trick.  I filled a warm crepe with vanilla ice cream and drizzled it with a quick Nutella chocolate "sauce" I improvised by thinning some warmed nutella (a staple in my house) with a bit of low fat milk.  My little guy and I really enjoyed sharing this as a mid-afternoon snack, hiding out from the blazing 100 degree heat outside.  And my husband loved it as an after dinner dessert after a (very long) day at work.  It was so satisfying, we repeated it again the next day.

I enjoyed my first crepe-making endeavor.  Though the crepes on their own were not as flavorful as the ones I've had at restaurants and crepe stands, I like keeping things a bit lighter and simpler at home when it makes sense.  Also, I suspect crepes are bound to taste better while you're standing on a street in Paris, even when they're simply wrapped in a piece of parchment or paper towel and casually handed to you from a street vendor.