The Crepe

Elizabeth is quite pleased with herself today.

It all began a little over a month ago, when our cousins, aunt and uncle (or CAAU) got us a crepe maker for Christmas.  I had never made crepes, though I am partial to them.  Actually, I suppose I’m partial to anything in the flat-baked-breakfast-batter family, which includes pancakes and waffles.

But back to the crepes.  When we first brought it home and unpacked it, we carefully read the instructions for clues on making the perfect product.  According to the manual, the general technique was to crank the heat to volcanic levels, dump the batter onto the griddle, and then hustle to spread it into a circle before it cooked too solid to do so.  “Okay,” I thought.  “Seems simple enough.  Pour it n’ spread it.”

The challenge was that, with the griddle being so blisteringly hot, we had about 4 seconds to get the batter spread in a uniform thickness to all edges of the pan, which seemed to grow larger with each passing instant.  It got to the point where the crepe making became an increasingly stressful affair.  The air was thick with tension as we prepared to pour the batter.  A deep breath; then one of us would take the plunge,  and the race was on.  Batter splashed onto the griddle, sizzling and popping.  The one wielding the crepe spreader would leap (literally) into action, dancing about the pan and frantically whipping the batter about, trying to make something approximating a circular shape.  The seconds raced past as the liquid cooked and thickened, and the situation became more urgent.  The batter-spreader began hopping from foot to foot, resembling a squirrel with an overabundance of Coke in its system, desperately looking for pools of batter that could be spread out.  And then time was up, the crepe was cooked, and a misshapen, slightly lumpy cake would come off the grill.

It was tasty, but the experience felt slightly lacking.

So last week, on the way home from work, we stopped by the crepe truck that sometimes parks outside our apartment.  This was partly to enjoy a savory crepe for supper, partly because we like the friendly people that run it, and partly so we could spy on their technique.

We learned two valuable things from this stop.  One, we had the heat way too high on our crepe maker.  And two, that the recommended “short, quick strokes” approach to spreading batter was not necessarily the most effective.  So yesterday morning, as we were making sweet crepes for breakfast, Elizabeth employed a new tactic — one that involved low heat and a sweeping circular motion — and produced a perfectly even, perfectly round, perfectly baked crepe.  As we ate our breakfast with strawberries and syrup, she sat there with a big “I’m the best crepe-maker ever” grin on her face, occasionally calling my attention to the beauty and deliciousness of the food she had prepared.

I am going to need to practice, because apparently breakfast has become a competitive sport.