4 Levels of Crepes: Amateur to Food Scientist

[lemon grating]

[whisk tapping]

[batter sizzles]

[upbeat music]

Hello!

My name is Jerry and I'm a level one chef.

Hi, I'm Kit.

And I'm a level two chef.

Hi, I'm Penny.

And I'm a chef at the Institute of Culinary Education

and I've been a chef for 17 years.

[drum rumbles]

[upbeat music]

Today, I'm gonna be making myself a sweet crepe.

It's gonna be banana and Nutella filled,

and I'm gonna top it off

with caramel sauce and whipped cream.

My crepe today is going to be made with strawberries,

which are so great, and they're summertime fruit,

with a cream filling, mm, just a flavor burst in your mouth.

The crepe I'm making today is blackberry, passion fruit,

and champagne.

It is a vehicle for all the other delicious flavors

that I'm gonna add later.

[door slams]

[chiming music]

First step, batter time.

Now I like using the pancake mix because it's much easier.

You don't have to worry about messing up

or measuring out too many ingredients.

I like to make it myself because well,

everything you need is pretty much always in your own home

and it just tastes better.

First, I'm gonna brown my butter.

It makes it a little bit darker,

a little bit more nuttier,

it gives it more of a dessert-feel.

I like to watch the butter because if you don't,

it'll go from brown to kind of dark.

So we're gonna dump that into our bowl, just like that.

I'm gonna start by adding butter.

And then I'm gonna add my eggs.

So basically what I'm doing here

is I'm adding all the liquid first and then my milk,

and my favorite part, the champagne.

I mean, it's brunch, right?

The carbonation that's in the champagne

will also give a little bit of lightness.

It's not major.

Usually in a crepe batter, there's milk, milk and water.

And so, any place that there's water,

you can change that out

to any kind of a flavorful liquid

you like. [cork pops]

You don't have to do super fancy, elevated,

really expensive champagne, use whichever one you like.

And if you don't want to use the alcohol,

you can leave it out.

But I think, you know, I'm gonna use the alcohol.

So, as we get bubbles around the edges. Look at that.

And once you have it all the way around,

it's pretty brown and you're ready to go.

Then we go to our next thing, which is our flour.

Now, this is gonna sound weird,

but since we're gonna be whisking today,

I'm actually gonna try to get some of these clumps

out of this before I actually incorporate the milk.

So I'm just gonna get in there

and that's good enough for me.

I'm using all-purpose flour.

I like to sift it just because when you look at flour,

it's all like really like crumbly and it's together,

but this will make it smooth.

A little bit of all-purpose flour.

I'm gonna add a little bit of sugar and a touch of salt.

And salt goes in every sweet recipe, no matter what,

because salt is a flavor amplifier and without it,

the product just tastes sort of dead and cardboardy,

I'm going to put the top on, turn it on slowly to start,

and then I can turn it up.

Add my flour.

Next, we are going to add sugar,

just pour it in onto our eggs.

And I'm one of those people.

I like to crack my eggs into the bowl.

I find that if you want to use 2%,

because you want to save on a calorie or two, go ahead.

But I'm like, it's crepes, it's French.

I'm using whole milk.

Water.

So with sweet crepes, you add vanilla extract.

'Cause well, it adds to the flavor.

And now we're gonna get into our whole milk.

We already measured out 1 1/2 cups.

And since we're gonna be whisking,

I'm gonna be pouring in our milk as I whisk.

We're off to crepe land.

Except for that brown butter, pour it in there,

put the lid on, and you blend.

[blender whirring]

And we're ready. Stick this in the fridge for an hour.

We're gonna transfer it to a quart container.

And then this baby's gonna go into the fridge

for at least an hour up to overnight.

So don't forget, we're using pancake mix,

but we don't want the consistency of a pancake.

That would be too thick. Crepes are nice and thin.

So we want this to be just slightly thicker

than what you expect from water.

So we're gonna grab our one egg here.

And my one rule with eggs is don't get any shells.

Gonna open that up. Nice landing.

And then we're just gonna whisk our egg into the batter.

It's looking pretty smooth.

And now this is ready to go straight into the frying pan.

Now it's time to work on my filling.

This is my favorite part.

I'm doing a strawberry basil compote.

Now I'm gonna make my passion fruit curd.

I'm gonna start by zesting these lemons.

If I do this onto a cutting board,

and then I pick it up and transfer it to the pot,

I'll lose a lot of the oils of the lemon zest

on the cutting board itself,

and I want all of that flavor in here.

All right, so today we're gonna be using

bananas and hazelnut spread for our filling.

I love bananas. They're always full of protein.

It's like my go-to breakfast,

but inside of a crepe, wowa-zowa!

You can go wrong.

All right, we're gonna slice these bananas pretty thin.

I like to cut in smaller pieces

just for the fact that when it's cooking,

I want to make sure

that they're able to break down and cook faster.

So, I'm gonna cut all these lemons.

I need the zest from four of them,

but I need the juice from all six.

And I'll just press it down here.

I'm gonna add that to my pot with the zest.

And then I'm gonna add my passion fruit juice.

It's super tart,

and super floral and aromatic, and I just love it.

I added my sugar, and what I'm gonna do now

is put this on a medium heat,

stir it together to combine the sugar,

and I'm gonna let it cook for a bit.

It's looking good!

Now we're gonna add the rest of our ingredients,

Sugar, we'll need some fresh lemon.

We're gonna reserve the zest for later.

Now, lemon, squeeze it on in there. Just put it in there.

And the lemon is just to give it a little bit of moisture.

Balsamic vinegar actually brings out the flavor

of the strawberries.

It's very sweet. It's very luscious.

And last, I like to add some basil.

And I used fresh,

and I chop it up as thin as I possibly can.

And then you stir,

and you let this cook for about 30 minutes.

All right, so our banana slices are done.

I'm feeling pretty good about it.

So I'm gonna separate my eggs.

And this is how I separate my eggs.

I have one of them in my left hand

and I crack it with another one in my right.

And this method really only works with cold eggs.

So now, I'm gonna gently scoop the yolk up

and pinch the white off between my fingers.

And as a professional chef,

I do a lot of egg separating,

and this method is way faster.

Okay, beautiful.

So my mixture has come up to temperature.

I'm gonna whisk the yolks,

so get them broken up and uniform.

This just makes it easier for me.

And then I'm gonna slowly

introduce the hot liquid into the eggs.

The trick is only that I have to keep moving it.

So as long as I'm stirring,

I won't end up with really gross, sweet, scrambled eggs.

Now this is gonna go back in the pot.

So I'm gonna keep it over a nice medium speed.

The last thing I like to do is add the pepper.

It smells like summer.

This is gonna be delicious.

This is nice and thick and beautiful.

I'm gonna add some softened butter to this,

and I'm gonna whisk it in.

And now I'm gonna strain this.

Now, in curd,

we have eggs that are very, very, very lightly cooked.

And so, for food safety reasons,

we need to chill this down as quickly as we can.

And one of the best ways to do that is an ice bath.

And we also want to put a piece of plastic wrap

touching the surface,

so that the curd doesn't develop a film.

It's ready.

Put it in the bowl. This is beautiful.

And it will kind of look like the consistency

of a beautiful strawberry jam.

This is gonna be an amazing filling for my crepes.

So now that we're pretty much there,

we're gonna work on our toppings.

So we're gonna just make ourselves a salted caramel.

We're just gonna open this up.

So we're gonna squirt this into our Pyrex, just like that.

We're gonna go for about two tablespoons.

But you know what? We're living life.

Let's just go for it.

I can take the easy route.

I can just use some canned whipped cream,

but I'm level two, we don't do that.

We take fresh cream, pour it in the bowl,

take your sugar, powdered sugar,

in the bowl, dump it in.

And then you take your vanilla extract.

You just gonna start with this first,

and we're gonna blend.

So these are the ingredients that go

into my passion fruit cookie,

or more specifically passion fruit sable.

It's a basic creaming method cookie,

but instead of white sugar, it's confectioners' sugar.

So I put my unsalted butter into the bowl,

along with the confectioners' sugar and a pinch of salt.

And now I turn the mixer on low speed

and start getting it mixed together.

So we want to be able to make sure

we can drizzle this caramel.

So let's get this into the microwave.

When you're done, you look for these peaks.

See this? Look at that.

That is delicious. It just sticks right on there.

Now I'm adding my mascarpone cheese and it is delicious.

And I actually like to chill it, but keep it slightly soft.

Now we blend. [blender whirring]

Make sure you incorporate the mascarpone

in there very, very thoroughly.

So with the egg, this is a very small recipe

because it's only for textural component

in the entire crepe.

And it only really needs the one egg yolk,

and it really only needs half of that.

And then this is vanilla bean paste.

It transfers the flavor so much better in this weird way

than just plain vanilla extract.

And I'm gonna just mix them until they're combined.

And my all-purpose flour

and passion fruit powder.

And the passion fruit powder is the secret for flavoring.

And I'm just gonna mix it together until it's combined.

All right, so my caramel is ready.

I let that sit in the microwave for about 15 to 20 seconds.

And now I'm ready to add some salt.

So I'm gonna add a little bit there, just like that.

Our dry ingredients are fully combined.

We transfer this to my sheet pan.

And this doesn't have to be pretty at all

because I'm literally baking it for crumb.

It's gonna go into a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes

until it's golden brown and crumbly.

So I'm gonna give

this caramel a try. [glass clinking]

See if it's where I want it to be.

All right.

That is pretty salted and caramelly.

This is the blackberry champagne sauce for our crepe.

We're gonna start by adding our berries, our sugar,

and pinch of salt.

My sugar is dissolving,

and the blackberries are letting off some of their juice.

I'm gonna add one cup of my champagne.

And now we're gonna boil this

and we're gonna reduce it down.

And I'm gonna add another touch of my vanilla bean paste.

This is just to round out the flavors.

And this can be made in advance,

so you could make the sauce and hold it for a while

until you're ready to make and plate the dessert.

It is cooking time.

What's great about this frying pan is that it's nonstick.

This is also gonna really push us

into not getting sticky, sticky crepes on our pan.

I'm gonna use my electric crepe pan.

This electric crepe pan

will help keep your crepes thin and delicious.

So, cooking crepes, it's not a hard thing to do.

It's really not.

But the first thing that you need to know

is that the first one, for sure,

and maybe even a couple after that, are gonna be garbage.

I like to use a cast-iron crepe pan to cook my crepes.

As I'm working my way through,

I keep the pan at a nice, even consistency.

And then I get more and more success as I go on.

So, we're gonna be using cooking spray.

I myself like cooking spray

'cause you just spray down the pan, it's really easy.

All right, so what we're gonna do

is we're gonna want to get our thing

to about medium high heat.

So I'm just gonna turn this up here.

Now we get down to business. You take your butter.

Butter adds flavor, right?

And anywhere that I can add flavor to this,

is a good thing for me.

And how I like to grease my pan

is I make a little paper towel.

I dip it into my melted butter

and just rub it all the way around.

Make sure you get up the sides as well.

We're gonna be using 1/3 of a cup.

That's gonna help us get a really nice-sized crepe.

And now you start to pour. You pour it on.

This is where I have fun

'cause I'm just like hoping for the best.

And we're just gonna make it as round as we can.

This is a bit of intuitiveness. Okay?

So I'm gonna remove the pan from the heat

and I'm gonna pour this in the middle.

And as soon as I pour, I jush.

And what I'm looking for is a nice even coating.

We're going to whisk this pan around

to kind of swirl that batter mix all around just like that.

And once you feel like that liquid is kind of cooked on,

you're going to feel like

you're gonna just let it settle for a little bit and cook.

It looks a little thick when you put it on.

And that's why you have this little tool.

And you just spread it around as much as you can.

And we cook it about 45 seconds to a minute on each side.

You're gonna see some bubbles. That's okay. [laughs]

Basically, what we're gonna do is,

since these things are so thin,

we're gonna just let them cook

all the way through from one side.

There's no need to flip.

Flipping crepes is without a doubt an art.

But since I know my first one's gonna be janking anyway,

might as well go ahead and cook it just in case.

I'm still playing with it. You know what?

Sometimes it gets ugly. It gets ugly.

And we're gonna lose this one and that's fine.

You're gonna lose a crepe.

And we're gonna do it again.

This is feeling pretty good to me right now.

I feel like I can get under this crepe.

So I'm gonna just take the pan off this heat.

I'm gonna try to get under this crepe. Ooh, let's see.

All right. Wish me luck everybody.

This is where I shine.

I'm gonna slide it on here into our pan. Okay.

My first one I'm feeling okay about it.

So we're gonna give it another shot.

The second side is just to get

a little bit more set on it,

and then I can let this hang out a bit.

So that's too bland for me, because again, I want flavor.

So this time, I feel like my first crepe,

ironically, came out a little too thin.

So I'm gonna add a little bit more batter.

You know, just because they say crepes are thin pancakes

doesn't mean you can't make it thicker.

I'm gonna actually start pouring this on though.

Again, it's all about the wrist.

Pour it in a circle, pour it in a circle,

pour it in a circle, go.

And then the minute it's starting to circle out,

you get it to about 3/4 of the way of the circle,

stop the pour, get your little spoolie and push,

make it as round as you can.

And you want to keep it paper thin

'cause that is what a crepe is about.

So, this is saying it's about medium high.

Right into the middle of the pan, immediately jush.

And I'm gonna let that go

and see if I got my pan hot enough this time.

I think we're gonna be okay this time.

Last time it was a little scary. We lost a crepe.

Not today, not today.

I think this is looking pretty good.

Our sides are looking crispy again.

So let's take that off the heat, scrape the sides,

just like that.

See if we can get gravity to do a little work for us here

and kind of just slide it into our tray.

I always start by loosening up that edge.

You gotta be fearless here. Pick it up with my fingers.

Slip my spatula underneath in the middle and flip it over.

There we go. Oh, it's [indistinct] and I like it.

I like it. I like it! [laughs]

So we're gonna just keep going here.

I'm gonna try to make a few more,

just so that I feel pretty safe

about what I have for the final product.

There we go. Look at this one.

Isn't it beautiful? Just move it over to the side.

Look at that. There we go.

So, these are our crepes and they're ready to go.

And it's perfectly fine that they're on top of each other.

They're gonna cool,

and then we're gonna be ready to fill them.

It's time to assemble our crepes.

All right, so we're gonna start and if you'll see,

they came out pretty good.

We're gonna give it a flip.

And this is where we're gonna start the fun zone.

I like to take my prettiest crepe,

like this one right here, put it down.

And before I even get started, I like to take a fresh lemon.

Just squeeze it on there

to kind of give it a flavoring taste, just a little bit.

I'm gonna pick my three favorite ones.

I'm gonna pile them up on top of each other,

looking for the ones that have nice, golden brown edges.

And then I'm gonna cut them all three at once.

I'm gonna line them up with a little bit of overlap,

and I'm gonna start with my whipped ricotta.

This ricotta cheese, I made it yesterday.

I put a little dollop.

So we're gonna start off with our hazelnut spread.

So I'm just gonna put a lot.

And you want to be kind of delicate

about this whole situation here.

You don't want to ruin your hard work.

So don't worry. You know, just take your time.

And then a couple of like pinches of sugar.

And I like to take a little bit of the whipped cream.

I take it halfway down and I just squeeze it on there.

Now, since this is for the filling part,

I want to kind of thin this out.

And then we move onto the passion fruit curd.

I'm definitely overlapping

wherever my crepes are overlapping,

but I'm also not going all the way up to the top.

So, we're just gonna take some of these.

And again, this is up to you.

I am a little bit obsessed with like orderly and neatness.

And then you take some of the strawberry compote.

Just line that up. Just about two tablespoons.

Fold it in half. Look at that.

But we're not done.

We're gonna turn this and make it into quarters.

And then my texture layer that I baked off,

crumble a little bit over the top.

And now my cup of blackberries.

Now we're ready to roll.

So I'm gonna start from this edge

that I left without any cream, and I'm gonna roll up.

So you can see right here.

Like I'm missing a big chunk of my crepe, but that's okay.

'Cause I'm gonna show you something

that's gonna really help you out.

Oh, my goodness. Where did it go?

I'm just gonna fold it in half. Just like that! [laughs]

And guess what? We're gonna fold it over one more time.

I mean, we're not really too focused on presentation.

We're focused on deliciousness.

Squeeze it right there on the top.

And then I do like the little design right here.

So we're gonna drizzle from up above just like that.

Oh, wow!

I've seen this in like cooking shows where they go.

Is that good? I don't know. [laughs]

So, I'll start with my plate.

This is my cooled, reduced blackberry champagne sauce.

I'm gonna put a little tiny bit of that.

I'm gonna add my crumb on top of this.

We're gonna now move into our powdered sugar.

[Kit] Great, just like that.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm like, I'm too proud of myself.

A little bit more compote.

Now we're gonna add some fresh strawberries,

and then you take the zest,

a little bit of sprinkling, like on the top,

and bring a little color.

I'm going to pick this up,

and with a sense of authority, put it right down on top.

So my concept here is kind of like a flower.

To make that a little bit more obvious,

open the petals up just a little tiny bit.

All right, so now that we've powdered our crepe,

I'm gonna add a few more banana slices to the top

just to make it look nice.

I'm gonna give myself like a little boop,

and just for extra fun

because the whipped cream does add a nice little touch

to every single bite you take,

I'm gonna give myself a little extra on the side

so that I can scoop it on.

And this is my crepe.

[door slams]

There we go.

And this is my crepe.

[door slams]

And then finish it off with a little bit more of my sauce.

And this is my crepe.

[door slams]

[suspenseful music]

Now it's my favorite part.

We eat.

Mm.

Wow! They're, all the textures are there.

The crepe was made to perfection.

What I love about the taste of this

is that the strawberry basil compote is just,

it tastes like summer, it tastes so light.

And the creaminess from the cheese,

and that champagne flow of flavor,

it's just flowing all through it.

It kind of bursts in your mouth.

So you have the cooked fruit flavor

and you have the fresh fruit flavor combining

with the sourness of the curd

and the creaminess of the cheese, it's incredible.

[door slams]

Sweet crepes are a delicious indulgence

with so many options for toppings, fillings,

and how you flip them.

Let's see how each of our three amazing chefs made theirs.

[dramatic music]

Crepes are very thin, unleavened pancakes

made from loose pourable batter,

and made in a small, shallow saute or crepe pan.

The batter is poured and the pan is tilted

so that the loose batter covers

the entire bottom of the pan evenly.

Crepes are cooked and flipped,

but remain pliable enough to fold, stuff,

or roll without tearing.

Now, there's a lot of dispute

on actually how you say crepe.

I myself say crepe. [laughs]

You may have heard the word pronounced as crepe,

but if we were in France, we would say crepe,

a la francais.

Either way, they are so sweet and delicious.

[dramatic music]

Getting the right consistency on your crepe

starts with the batter.

Jerry used Bisquick, which is a premixed flour product

that already has sugar, salt, and baking soda added to it,

so that you get the same standard product

every time you use it.

Hand-mixing is a great idea

because it minimized gluten formation.

So that his crepes were still tender and not chewy.

Kit kept her batter classic and simple.

She mixed her batter in a traditional blender,

which works well on a thin crepe batter,

and will add air as her batter is blended.

Aeration makes a lighter, porous crepe,

and it's the only means of leavening

with the traditional crepe batter

that doesn't have chemical leaveners.

I love champagne and I'm glad Penny used it.

The bubbles are really just diluted carbonic acid,

which also lowers the pH of the water

in the crepe batter.

So it's refreshingly tart and keeps the batter tender too.

[dramatic music]

While both Jerry and Kit chose more familiar flavors

for their fillings,

Penny picked an exotic passion fruit curd.

A fruit curd is a creamy sauce made with a fruit juice,

sugar, and is thickened and emulsified with egg yolks.

Passion fruit is a tropical fruit native to South America.

It's sweet and slightly tangy from citric acid

with some fruity, peachy notes, and a slight earthiness

from the presence of sulfur compounds too.

The edible flesh comes from a pulp

that surrounds the many seeds

contained within the outer husk.

To extract the juice and flavor,

the seeds and pulp are scooped out,

mixed in a blender, and then strained.

[dramatic music]

Jerry made a very simple, but delicious

salted caramel topping for his crepe.

Adding a little bit salt

really takes it to that next level.

Detecting flavor is neurologically complex.

And individual tastes buds, each of which contain

between five and 100 taste receptor cells,

can respond to several different tastes at once.

Salt is a flavor enhancer, and at low concentrations,

it can reduce bitterness while increasing sweetness,

sour, and umami perception,

which is what's happening with salty caramel.

There are also sweet receptors which work better

in the presence of sodium, an essential component of salt.

It's a wonderful and appealing flavor profile.

Oh, my gosh. I'm like, I'm too proud of myself.

Penny made a delectable blackberry sauce

with champagne as the liquid.

Because her sauce was simmered,

most of the alcohol in the champagne was evaporated,

but left a tart, sweet, fruit-forward quality

to her blackberry sauce.

Doesn't that make it incredible?

Having alcohol in the kitchen

can add a lot to your cooking.

Alcohol works to improve flavors and aromas,

and sometimes the texture of food.

It's a volatile polar molecule.

So it interacts with water really well.

Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water.

So some will evaporate at simmering temperatures,

but leave flavoring molecules in your dish.

Utilizing the champagne in the sauce was also a clever way

to mirror and highlight the flavor in her batter.

[dramatic music]

One of the most challenging aspects of crepes

is mastering the cooking technique.

Jerry spread his batter very thinly on a nonstick pan

and folded it for presentation.

So going flipless worked in this case.

If you have room on your countertop like Kit,

an electric crepe maker could also be a good option.

These have an automatic heating element included

that's designed to keep the cooking surface

at a constant temperature,

which means that your crepe will cook evenly

and be easier to flip.

I get so excited when that happens.

Penny went through a traditional route

and used a seasoned flat cast-iron pan to make her crepes.

You see these being used in France

where the crepes originated.

It's essential to preheat the pan like Penny did,

as the key is an even batter spread

on an evenly heated surface.

Once you get your crepes just right,

the sky's the limit when it comes to presentation.

It looks beautiful. It tastes delicious.

Next time you're in the mood for sweet crepes,

we hope you'll use some of these tips

from our three talented chefs.

[gentle music]