Basic Crêpes

One of my favorite go-to weekend breakfast foods is crêpes! I’ve made them for years and finally feel like I’ve perfected them. But here’s the catch: I still don’t have a crêpe tool, the T-shaped wooden dowel that helps you make sure each crêpe is perfectly even and flat every time. Nor do I have a crêpe pan to make sure it’s an even circle…It’s okay though!

I’m here to share the most simple crêpe recipe without fancy equipment and how to make sure you don’t get a clumpy batter. Cause who wants to eat crêpes with lumps of flour in every bite? Not me! I had to learn it the hard way, by trial-and-error, and then forgetting what I did right, just to make the same mistake again. Honestly, I should have just written down what I did the first time I did it right.

Diving right in: the key for lump-less crêpe batter is using a whisk and adding ingredients slowly and at the right time. I used to think that a fork would work just the same as a whisk, but this is one of the cases, where it actually doesn’t work! So go get yourself a whisk – they’re fairly cheap.

I used to use this recipe that tasted pretty good, but sometimes would get lumpy. To avoid this, slowly add liquid ingredients to the flour and continually whisk the batter. The best method I’ve found is to add the eggs one at a time (if doing a larger batch), fully mixing in the eggs with each addition. It’s okay if there’s still flour left, there never isn’t enough egg to mix all the flour. When pouring in the milk/water combo, be gentle and add a small amount each time, like 1/8 cup each. First, pour enough and whisk until the rest of the flour is combined, and it should be pretty thick. No lumps should be visible. If there are remaining lumps, whisk more until all lumps are gone. Then, and only then, are you allowed to pour the rest of the liquid into the batter.

And the final tip for perfect crêpes is prepping the pan or griddle to the right temperature. If the pan isn’t hot enough, the crêpes like to stick to even nonstick surfaces. So I like to crank up the heat to make sure it’s high enough – you can do a test by dropping batter and seeing if it comes off easily after a few seconds. Once the pan is hot enough, turn it back down to medium so you don’t burn them!

And there you go, the perfect technique for perfect and simple crêpes! Some variations I like to add are swapping out some of the flour for an equal amount of almond flour, or adding spices like cinnamon or even cocoa powder. Have fun with it!

Note: Sometimes I eat a whole recipe by myself, so feel free to scale up the ingredients to make more crêpes to share!