Rice Flour Crépes

Everybody at the Byrd House likes a nice, lazy weekend breakfast. Having received our Mafter 9” carbon steel crepe pan this week, we whipped up some tasty rice flour crepes to go along with our “go-to” oven-poached eggs and patty pork sausage.

Mafter Steel Crépe Pan

Earlier this week we seasoned the new Mafter crepe pan according to Mafter’s unusual instructions that called for sautéing potato peels in a 2/1 salt to oil mixture. Yet, it worked. The shipping coating was removed and the pan has a nice patina being otherwise ready to go.

Ingredients

First off, we wanted to make sure we had a handle on how to make a decent crepe. So, we scoured the web, and more importantly we researched Julie Child and Cooks Illustrated for a basic grip on the art of crepe making.

With that done, we had to address our first goal – avoiding wheat flour and added sugar. It quickly occurred to us that rice flour was the most likely substitute for the wheat flour. We also reasoned that the rice flour could be enhanced with a little arrowroot flour to add gluten-like thickening and coconut flour for texture. We used Superfine Sweet Rice Flour from Authentic Foods. We simply ignored the temptation to add sweetener of any kind relying on the rice flour to add its own sweetness to the recipe.

As to the other ingredients, many recipes call for whole milk, but we opted for 2% (mainly because that’s all we had on hand), and we assumed that there is not much difference between crepes made with skimmed non-fat or low-fat milk, 1% fat, 2% fat or whole fat milk. We thought about a mixture of milk and cream, but left that idea for another day. Our favorite milk right now is Organic Valley organic 2% milk fat.

Our eggs were Publix organic and we normally opt for the free range or cage free eggs fed non-GMO when available.

Blending the Ingredients

Combining the ingredients can be done with a blender, hand mixer or simply by hand, but this job seemed to be a no-brainer for our handy immersion blender. So, to a 30 ounce Mason jar we thoughtfully added the milk first, then the eggs, then the flour mix and lastly the salt. Starting at the bottom of the jar on low speed to get going and quickly moving to high speed, we had a totally lump-free, thin batter in not more than a minute.

Cooking the Crépes

We were now ready to for our maiden voyage with the Mafter carbon steel crepe pan. This pan, lightly coated with lard, warmed faster than anticipated at medium high heat. The pan also needed very little ongoing heat to sustain itself. So, the reviews are right – carbon steel pans really do heat faster than cast iron and hold heat just as long.

We used Julia Child’s technique of holding the pan in the left hand off heat while pouring ¼ cup of batter into the middle of the pan before swirling the pan around to allow gravity to assist in fully coating the pan. Once the batter was poured we returned the pan to the heat. In a minute or so the edges of the crepe curled and a peak underneath revealed a beautifully browned crepe, which amazingly released itself from the pan all by itself. Flipped to the other side, finishing the crepe was fast, taking no more than 20 to 30 seconds max. The crepes were removed to a wire cooling rack, and we repeated the process.

We did find that the Mafter pan wanted to overheat. Having anticipated as much, we reduced the heat to medium low before things go out of hand, and impressively, the pan held its temperature well throughout the remainder of the process. Whether it would have maintained temperature on low heat if making more than 6-8 crepes is a question for another day when we have a crowd to feed.

Tasty, Tasty Rice Flour Crépe Breakfast

After the short rest on a wire rack we filled our crepes with poached eggs and patty sausage and finished them with a dollop of seedless blackberry All Fruit spreadable fruit from Polaner – a simple weekend breakfast that held us all day long.

What a great weekend brunch – our batter recipe was perfect, and our crepe-friendly Mafter crepe pan performed well. All things considered, this crepe making exercise was a breeze and well worth the extra effort on a lazy weekend morning.

Now, onward and upward to Crepes Suzette and Gateau de Crepes a la Florentine . . .

Ingredients

• 1-cup milk or coconut milk
• 2 eggs
• 1-cup sweet rice flour
• 1 tbsp. coconut flour
• 1 tsp. arrowroot flour
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1-3 tbsp. lard, coconut oil, beef tallow or other paleo fat source

Method

1. ADD all the ingredients, except the fat, to the 30 oz. Mason jar in the order listed
2. BLEND with immersion blender starting in the bottom at first on low speed, then when all the ingredients become liquefied transition to high speed until batter is smooth
3. PRE-HEAT crepe pan on medium low heat for 5 minutes, then bring to medium to medium high heat
4. ADD ½ tbsp. fat in crepe pan and swirl pan to coat removing excess accumulation
5. TEST a spoonful of batter to see if it browns too quickly or too slowly, and adjust temperature accordingly
6. REMOVE hot pan from heat holding in left hand
7. POUR ¼ cup batter and swirl pan to coat the bottom with batter
8. RETURN pan to heat and cook until edges curl – 60 to 90 seconds
9. TURN crepe either with spatula, fingers or flipping (for show-offs)
10. COOK the other side of the crepe for 30 seconds and remove to wire cooling rack