Shrove Tuesday

Today is Shrove Tuesday, and the day before the beginning of Lent on the Roman Catholic calendar. Mum always used to make us crepes for Shrove Tuesday when I lived with her, and it’s something I really haven’t kept up for the past couple of years – more laziness on my part, I suppose. This year however, I decided to make crepes for breakfast. Honestly, I don’t really like pancakes all that much, I find them far too dense and quite bland. I do love crepes though. Mum always had the Bessemer crepe maker, and I have fond memories of helping her cook stacks of crepes to make her delicious pancake lasagne.

Last night, I mixed the batter, and then refrigerated it overnight. This made it easier in the morning to cook them up. Texture-wise, the batter was still fine, I just gave it a quick whisk before I cooked them. The batter made about 10 or so crepes, but who can count when you’re demolishing them as fast as you can cook them? The mixture is about the same consistency as Mum’s recipe, but I don’t think Mum puts butter in hers. The butter in the batter meant that the non-stick pan definitely didn’t need any butter on it. I also found that they were quite easy to flip, which was fun at 6:45am!

I like to eat my crepes with a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of sugar, which is exactly what we did this morning. It was a pleasant way to start the working day. This year, hubby and I have decided to ditch the soft drinks for Lent. Let’s see how we go for the next six weeks. Bring on Easter, I say!

Crepes – Master Recipe (Printable Recipe)
adapted from Stephanie's Crepes, pg 42

30g butter
pinch of salt
1½ cups milk
150g plain flour
2 eggs

Warm the butter (I use unsalted), salt and milk in a saucepan until the butter has melted. Then put the flour into a bowl and make a well. Crack the eggs into the well and whisk in some flour. Add the warm milk mixture, and whisk until the batter is lump-free. Refrigerate for 2 hours, or as much as overnight. The consistency looks like thin cream, and if it doesn’t, then you can add a little more milk.

Heat a non-stick pan, and wipe over with some buttered paper towel for the first one. (I think this is unnecessary, considering there is some butter in the batter.) Using a ladle, place some batter into the pan and swirl it around until it covers the pan. After about a minute, flip with a spatula, or if you’re feeling confident, flip it in the frypan – if you practice the wrist flick, you’ll get there! It doesn’t take too long to cook on the other side. A trick my mother-in-law uses when she makes lots of crepes is to put a heatproof plate over a pot of simmering water. Then you put the cooked crepes on the plate, and put the lid of the pot on top. This aids in keeping the crepes warm without drying them out.