Are crêpes making a comeback? Last year in Seattle, I tasted exceptional Lemon Sugar Crêpes at a food cart called Anita’s Crêpes. After cooking the crêpe on a large griddle, she squeezed fresh lemon juice on top and sprinkled some sugar that was then brûléed with a torch. Finally, a dollop of whipped cream and heaven was served. Yum.


Crêpes I love. Pastry cream not so much. Why do many French desserts have pastry cream and booze? And flambé. I have to say, flambéing is fun. But, whoa, I would use less Cointreau.

To make the crêpes, I whizzed all the ingredients in my blender and then let the batter rest while I made the pastry cream.

While waiting for the milk and vanilla to come to a boil, I whisked the yolks and sugar and then added the flour and cornstarch. [The smell of this flour mixture is, well, flour-y, so I was a little worried about the final result.] I slowly poured the hot milk into the egg mixture while continuing to whisk it using my stand mixer. When all was blended, I transferred it to a pot to heat until thick. Simmering it an extra five minutes helped to cook the flour and thicken it even more.

The pastry cream needed to be cooled before adding the whisked egg whites. [So I went for a walk with my dog.] When I came back, I set the oven at 350°, folded the egg whites into the pastry cream, and assembled the crêpes. It was ready after 15 minutes in the oven.

Then it was time to flambé. I heated a couple of tablespoons of Cointreau and lit it with a match. When the flame went out, I poured it over the crêpe. Dessert was done.

Recipe for Crêpes Soufflées au Cointreau (Souffléed Crêpes Flamed with Cointreau)

Serves 6


Sweet Crêpe Batter
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
Pinch salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup milk
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Grated zest of 1 orange

Pastry Cream
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch

¼ cup Cointreau plus 3 tablespoons for flaming the crêpes
1 egg, separated
3 egg wites
Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Unsalted butter, melted, for crêpe pan

You can find the recipe for Crêpes Soufflées au Cointreau (Souffléed Crêpes Flamed with Cointreau) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home or here.

Tasting Notes
I love anything wrapped in a crêpe. By baking these in the oven for 15 minutes, they were crispy and even tastier. My imagination is going crazy thinking of the combinations I could put inside the crêpe instead of the pastry cream. Plus this could be an easy make-ahead dessert since the crêpes can be made early and stored between sheets of waxed paper.

More Sweet Crêpes
• Whisk: Crêpes au sucre (Sugar pancakes)
• 101 Cookbooks: Sweet Crepes Recipe
• Chocolate & Zucchini: Crêpes
• Leite’s Culinaria: Crepes for Crepe Day
• Spectacularly Delicious: Lemon Crepes

Links
• Video: Crêpes soufflées à la crème chiboust, flambées au grand (in French, but it shows the technique)
• No Recipes: 5 tips for making perfect crêpes (recipe for crêpes with buttered apples)
• Food Wishes:How to Make Crepes - Even the Messed-Up Ones Will Be Perfect!
• Food & Drink: Crêpe expectations

Wish List
Crêpe Maker

Next Time
Crème anglaise in Oeufs à la Neige (Snow Eggs with Caramel and Crème Anglaise) on page 51

::Whisk Whenever::
I'm baking my way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, I try to find a suitable substitution.

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