Easy French Crepes Recipe for the Chandeleur

It almost the Chandeleur in France that’s why I thought about sharing my easy French crepes recipe with you. The Chandeleur is basically our Crêpe Day. As you might have understood now, it means people usually eats crepes during that day. We have a multitude of crepes recipe, sweet and savory, but I am going to focus on this easy French crepe recipe for today.

Crepes are very basic in general and call for only a few ingredients: flour, eggs, milk, salt, and sugar. I also add butter. The crepes are better and that way you don’t have to add additional fat in your pan to cook them.

To add flavor to my crepe batter, I add orange blossom water. It reminds me of when I was a kid. My mother used orange blossom flower a lot. I used to hate it, but lately I started liking it more and more, its smell taking me back to a wonderful time of carefreeness. So now I use it in a lot of dishes, like my crepes.

This ingredient is optional. You can also replace it with Rum or whatever you feel like (Grand Marnier is a favorite with crepes, or even Cognac etc.). You may also add lemon or oranges peels (zests) into your batter.

What can I do to avoid lumps

This is a very important things when you do crepes: you want to avoid lumps in your batter. So, here are two things you can do.

First, you can start by adding the flour to your bowl followed y your eggs (beaten) and a bit of milk (about ¼). Mix well until you get a very soft dough. Then add a little bit of milk, whisk, bit of milk, whisk etc.

Or, you can start by adding the eggs to your bowl, whish them, then add the flour little by little and then the milk little by little.

I personally use the first option as it is faster, and I don’t have lumps at all. If you still have lumps, you can blend everything at the end before cooking your crepes.

When it comes to butter, melt it in advance and makes sure it is COLD before adding it to the batter. If your butter is warm when you add it into your flour/milk/eggs mixture, a thermal shock will happen and your butter will not get incorporated into the batter, it will forms little granules.

If you are in a hurry and don’t want to wait for the butter to totally cool down, slightly warm up your milk then. Both the batter and your butter will then be at the same temperature, avoiding a thermal shock.

Do you have to let stand the batter before using?

Well, not really. We usually let dough/batter stand before using it in order to create a gluten network. In the case of our crepes batter, the network is done in a matter of minutes. Just the time for you to clean a little around and warm up your pan. You may obviously still prepare the batter the day before if you want.

Why is my first crepe always ugly?

Most likely because your pan is not hot enough. Your pan needs to be really hot in order for the crepe to have this really nice gold color and be easy to flip. In order to check the temperature, just throw a few drops of water into your pan. The water should “dance” and sizzle.

What about the material?

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You don’t need much to do crepes. I use my good old KitchenAid with the whisk attachment. But you don’t really need one. A bowl and a whisk are just totally fine (I became lazy, that’s all). Make sure you use a pan with a non-sticky surface like the Tefal. And if you have lumps, you can use a blender.

Now your turn to try to make delicious and easy French crepes at home. Do not hesitate to leave a comment or post a picture if you try it!