Classic All-Purpose Crêpes

Happy Maslenitsa, my friends!

Maslenitsa or Pancake Week is a eastern european religious and folk festival that celebrates the end of the winter and the start of spring. In Orthodox tradition it is the week of preparation before the start of Great Lent, a time to eat all the cheese and dairy and animal products forbidden during lent.

This traditional eastern european festivity is famous for its blini (crêpes) with many fillings and toppings, from sour cream to caviar, to salmon and all things sweet! There are many recipes for blini and I already showed you how to make traditional Russian kefir crepes  and today I’m showing you the classics of all classic all-purpose crêpes. Which you can have with sweet or savory toppings, they are also great for stuffing. Check out these gluten-free crepes with mushroom and cheese filling.

These classic ccrêpes are so soft, thin and buttery. They can fold and bend and roll and shape to however you want them to look, and they can hold just about anything. Bananas, melted chocolate, peanut butter, maple syrup, yogurt, ricotta or cottage cheese, honey, berries, and/or Nutella. And ham, smoked salmon, caviar. Bacon? I’m just saying. If you can dream it, it can be real.

They are perfect and easy to make for breakfast with simple ingredients you already on hand. You whip up the batter in no time, get the non-stick skillet ready, some good butter and you are off to a good start. When the crêpe is ready for you, the edges should crisp up and come up easily. Just gently ease off the centre with the spatula and flip it over. They only take a minute or two to cook on one side and another minute on the other. You’ll be seeing a beautiful stack of classic crêpes in no time.

If you come up with your own amazing mix and match fillings and toppings, I’m expecting a detailed food-sharing report in the comments. Crêpes FOR LIFE!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups milk

3 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 cup boiling water

1/4 cup melted butter + more for greasing

In a large mixing bowl whisk the eggs with salt and sugar. Add half of the milk and mix. Then sift all the flour into the mixing bowl and mix to combine. The batter will be thicker than the batter for pancakes, but this way we will eliminate the lumps that might form in the batter.

Gradually add the rest of the milk and mix. Then pour hot boiling water while whisking the batter. This will make our crêpes thin and elastic. At the end add oil, mix everything and leave the batter to rest for 15 minutes.

Preheat 2 non-stick pans over medium-high heat and grease it with a little knob of butter. I prefer to use 2 skillets at the same time as it makes things go much faster. When the pans are hot, working one at a time, pour in about 1/4-1/3 cup of batter, depending on the size of your pan, into one side of the pan and swirl it quickly to cover the entire pan with a thin layer of batter.

When the top of the crêpes has no more wet spots and edges turn crispy, run the spatula underneath the edges of the crêpes, then lift it with hands or spatula and flip it over. Cook for another 30 seconds and remove to a plate.

Cover each crêpes with melted butter using a pastry brush and stack them on each other. Continue cooking crêpes until no more batter remains greasing the pan with butter before each crêpe.

Serve warm with different toppings or stuff with either sweet or savory fillings.