Super Simple Crepes

Not feeling the American style pancakes? Try these crepes on for size, it’s my absolute fail safe recipe and never disappoints. I’ve given a lemon sauce here to go with them but this recipe is really versatile and it’ll work with any topping or filling, sweet or savoury. It’s the recipe I’ll be using tonight for our pancake day party.

Crepes au Citron makes enough for 4 people

Crepes (makes 12 small):

• 125g plain flour
• 1 large egg, beaten
• pinch of salt
• 10g caster sugar (for sweet ones only)
• 300ml whole milk
• 20g butter, melted to nut brown

Lemon Sauce:

• 60-100g caster sugar
• 2 lemons
• 50ml water

First of all, get your batter on the go as you need to let it rest for a while. Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl (and actually sift it, no one likes a lumpy crêpe).

Make a well in the centre and add the beaten egg.

Start to whisk and then gradually add the milk until you have a smooth batter.

Melt the butter and cook it until its brown an smells nutty-not black and smells burnt.

Add to the batter. Cling film the bowl or pour into tupperware and let it rest in the fridge for 20-30 minutes, this will help ensure a nice smooth batter.

In a saucepan, put the sugar, the juice of one lemon and 50ml of water and bring to the boil. I’ve given quite a variable amount of sugar as it’s completely dependent on how sweet you like things, I love really tart lemony things so i only use 60g but you’ll probably want more so just keep adding sugar and tasting until it’s sweet enough for you.

While the syrup is heating, supreme the other lemon. To do this, you cut off the top and the bottom of the lemon and then cut off the skin around the outside, making sure to remove all the white.

Next, cut between the membrane of each segment so that they don’t have any pith left on them.

Once the syrup has come to the boil, take it off the heat and a the lemon segments.

Next up, make your crepes, wipe a little flavourless oil around your pan, I like to do small ones as I think they’re cuter but do whatever size you like. Bring your pan up to a medium heat and add just enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan. Cook one side, then flip. You only want them lightly coloured, don’t let them get too brown.

You want 3 of these little crepes per person. Cook them one by one and then stack them up between baking paper until you need them.

Once you’ve cooked them all, fold each crêpe into 4 and warm up the syrup.

Warm them through in the syrup

Now all that’s left to do is serve them up, making sure to get some syrup and a few of the lemon segments.

Happy Pancake Day!