4 Levels of Crepes: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

[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 [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 there's summertime fruit with a cream filling 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 [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 going to 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 going to dump that into our bowl just like that i'm going to start by adding butter and then i'm going to 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 brush right the carbonation that's in the champagne will also give a little bit of lightness it's not major usually in a crep 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 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 going to use the alcohol so as it gets 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 going to sound weird but since we're going to be whisking today i'm actually going to try to get some of these clumps out of this before i actually incorporate the milk so i'm just going to 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 two percent 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 because well it adds to the flavor and now we're going to get into our whole milk we've already measured out one and a half cups and since we're going to be whisking i'm going to be pouring in our milk as i whisk we're off to crepeland except for that brown butter pour it in there put the lid on and you blend 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 would 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 going to make my passion fruit curd i'm going to 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 going to be using uh 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 wow you cannot go wrong all right we're going to slice these bananas pretty thin so 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 going to cut all these lemons i needed the zest from four of them but i need the juice from all six and i'll just place it on here i'm gonna add that to my pot with the zest and then i'm gonna add my passion fruit juice super tart and super floral and aromatic and i just love it i added my sugar and what i'm going to do now is put this on a medium heat stir it together to combine the sugar and i'm going to let it cook for a bit it's looking good now we're going to add the rest of our ingredients sugar we need some fresh lemon we're going to 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 use 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 going to 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 on 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's come up to temperature i'm gonna whisk the yolks to 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 going to go back under the pot so i'm going to keep it over a nice medium speed last thing i like to do is add the pepper it smells like summer this is going to 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 now 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 let's 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 could take the easy route i could 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're 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 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 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 it make sure you incorporate the mash component 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 at that it really only needs half of that and then this is vanilla bean peas 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 i'm gonna transfer this to my sheet pan and this doesn't have to be pretty at all because i'm literally baking it for chrome 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 uh 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 going to 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 can 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 going to really push us into not getting sticky sticky crepes on our pan i'm going to use my electric crepe pan this electric crate 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 in a nice even consistency and then i get more and more success as i go on so we're going to be using cooking spray i myself like cooking spray because you just spray down the pan it's really easy all right so what we're going to do is we're going to want to get our thing to about medium high heat so i'm just going to turn this up here now we get down the 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 going to be using one third of a cup and that's going to help us get a really nice sized uh crepe and now you start the pour you pour it on this is where i have fun because i'm just like hoping for the best and we're just going to make it as round as we can this is a bit of intuitiveness okay so i'm going to remove the pan from the heat and i'm going to pour this in the middle and as soon as i pour i just 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 going to 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 basically what we're going to do is since these things are so thin we're going to 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 going to be janky 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 onto our pan okay my first one i'm feeling okay about 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 blond 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 or 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 risk pour in a circle pour in a circle pour in a circle go and then the minute it's starting to circle out you get it to about three-fourths 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 because that is what a crepe is about so this is saying it's about medium high right into the middle of the pan immediately judge 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 was a little scary we lost a crate 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 got to be fearless here pick it up with my finger slip my spatula underneath in the middle and flip it over there we go oh it's bubbling i like it i like it i like it [Laughter] 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 crops 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 uh 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 prettyless crate like this one right here put it down and before i even get started i like to take fresh lemon just squeeze it on there 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 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 on to 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 going to 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 pulp just line that up usually about two tablespoons fold it in half look at that but we're not done we're going to turn this and make it into quarters and then my texture layer that i've baked off crumble a little bit over the top and now my cut blackberries now we're ready to roll so i'm going to start from this edge that i left without any cream and i'm going to roll up so you can see right here like i'm missing a big chunk of my crepe but that's okay because i'm going to show you something that's going to really help you out oh my goodness where did it go i'm just gonna fold it in half just like that and uh guess what we're gonna fold it over one more time i mean we're not really that too focused on presentation we're focused on deliciousness squeeze it right there on the top and then i do like a little design right here so we're going to drizzle from up above just like that oh wow i've seen this in like cooking shows so they go is that good i don't know 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 cream just like that oh my gosh i'm like i'm too proud of myself add a little bit more composure now we're going to add some fresh strawberries and then you take the zest a little bit of sprinkling like on the top bring a little color and 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 going to give myself like a little boop and just for extra fun because the whipped cream does add like a nice little touch to every single bite you take i'm going to give myself a little extra on the side so that i can scoop it on on and this is my crepe there we go and this is my crepe and then finish it off with a little bit more of my sauce and this is my crepe now's my favorite part we eat [Music] wow there 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 the creaminess from the cheese and that champagne float flavor is 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 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 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 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 getting the right consistency on your crepes starts with the batter jerry used bisquick which is a pre-mixed 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 a 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 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 the 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 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 taste buds each of which contain between 5 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 one of the most challenging aspects of crepes is mastering the cooking technique jerry spread his batter very thinly on a non-stick pan and folded it for presentation so going flip-less worked in this case if you have room on your countertop like kit an electric crate 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 the traditional road 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

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 1,312,135

Keywords: 4 levels, 4 levels of crepes, bisquick crepes, crepe, crepe recipes, crepes, crepes 3 ways, crepes 4 levels, crepes recipe, crepes with bisquick, crêpe, crêpes, easy crepes, easy crepes recipe, epi 4 levels, epicurious, epicurious 4 levels, expert crepes, french crepes, french crepes recipe, how to crepes, how to make crepes, how to make french crepes, make crepe, make crepes, pancake crepe, professional crepes, quick crepes, quick crepes recipe

Id: T4VCQQzebzU

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021