Crêpes with Strawberries

Crêpes are so traditionally French. And how delightfully delicious they are, too! I love their thin and elegant texture, so smooth and soft. And yet you can combine them with a thousand other ingredients. Whether you want savory crêpes with vegetables, meat or cheese or sweet crêpes with fruits, cream or ice cream, the possibilities are endless. Once you know how to make crêpes you’ll love them even more. And it’s also a favorite dish among children!

As the strawberry season is not yet over I’ve made some crêpes with strawberries today. I stewed the strawberries for 2 minutes and added elderflower syrup for some extra flavor. If you don’t have elderberry syrup at hand, use some fruit juice and add an extra tablespoon of sugar.

Right, let’s start now. I’ll show you how to make them.

Crêpes with Strawberries

Makes about 12 crêpes:
2 1/3 cup flour, all-purpose (260g)
2 tablespoons sugar
a pinch of salt
vanilla extract
2 ¼ cups milk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons butter, melted
butter for the pan

For the strawberries:
1 pound fresh strawberries (500g)
2 tablespoons elderflower syrup (alternatively: fruit juice and 1 tablespoon sugar)
1/2 lemon (juice)

some double cream, mascarpone or yoghurt for serving

For the crêpes, melt the butter on the stove or in the microwave. Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Make a hollow in the middle. Whisk the milk, eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl or in a measuring jar until well combined. Pour the milk and eggs into the hollow. Use an egg whisk and start whisking the milk-eggs-mixture very slowly, constantly stirring in more and more of the flour until you have a smooth batter with no lumps. Add the melted butter. Pour everything into a jar so that you can easily pour little doses of the batter into the pan for baking.

Wash the strawberries, remove the green leaves, cut them into halves or quarters (depending on the size of the strawberries) and put them into a pan. Add the elderflower syrup and lemon juice. Bring to the boil and let it simmer for 2 minutes.

Melt ½ teaspoon of butter in a non-stick frying pan. Spread the butter equally in the pan (maybe by using a heat-resistant brush). Pour some of the batter into the pan. While doing this rotate and swirl the pan slightly so that the batter can coat the whole bottom of the pan. Use only little batter, as you want to get thin crêpes. Bake the crêpe over medium heat on one side until the bottom side gets golden brown. The crêpe now loses its shine. Use a non-metal spatula to turn the crêpe over. It is easier if you brush the spatula with some melted butter before using it to flip over the first crêpe. Bake the crêpe on the other side, too. This will take much less time (only about 30 seconds)! Now let the crêpe slide onto a plate and fold it twice so that you get a “quarter” of a circle. Cover it with some foil to keep it warm. Make the other crêpes in the same way.

Place 2 crêpes on a plate, and serve with a spoonful of strawberries and a spoonful of double cream, mascarpone or yoghurt on top.

Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:

And here is what they look like in the end:

And finally, the recipe for printing: