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How to make Crepes

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Trader Joe's Buttermilk Pancake Mix

Trader Joe's Buttermilk Pancake Mix

Trade Joe’s makes it easy to enjoy crepes

Here is a super easy way to make crepes. We usually enjoy crepes for special occasion breakfasts but they are also great for lunch, dinner or dessert as well. Sometimes crepes are filled with sweet fillings (think here about filling a crepe with jam, yogurt or fruit fillings) and other times they are savory ( here what about chicken chunks and steamed broccoli with mushroom sauce or diced ham with a cheese sauce). Either way you fill them, we think they are pretty cool and that everyone will just love them

Now if you have never made crepes before, they might seem a bit strange. Basically you are making pancakes, but instead of thick and fluffy pancakes, you will be thinning down the batter (with either milk or water) with the goal of making a runny batter that will spread out to cover the bottom of your pan. We like smaller crepes, so we like to use a small-ish pan; like those little 8 inch pans that you might cook a couple of fried eggs in.

We like to use Trader Joe’s Buttermilk Pancake & All Purpose Baking Mix to make our crepes as everything is pre-measured and ready right out of the box.

For the best results, the batter must “rest” for a few minutes after you mixed it up. So let it sit in the bowl for a few minutes while you clean up, or go have a coffee 🙂

What you need (about 10 crepes):

  • 1Cup Trader Joe’s Buttermilk Pancake Mix
  • 1 Egg
  • 1Cup Water (+ more to make batter thin)
  • Oil for cooking
  • Filling Ingredients of your choice

1. Mix Egg and 1Cup of water together in a bowl. Add 1 Cup Trader Joe’s Buttermilk Pancake Mix and whisk together until smooth. Check the batter; it should be thin. Add more water if needed to get the right thickness. Let the batter rest for 15 minutes before you start to cook

2. Heat your pan on medium heat until hot. Wipe the hot pan with a paper towel dipped in cooking oil so that the crepes don’t stick. Add about ¼ cup of the crepe batter to the pan and swirl around. You want to coat the bottom of the pan with a thin layer batter, without having a lot leftover.

3. Cook the crepe unit the top side is dry, but try not to let the bottom brown. Watch your heat and adjust as necessary.

4. When each crepe is done we usually stack them together on a plate until all the crepes are ready, then you can fill them all at once. OR you can wait until the crepes cool, wrap the plate in plastic and chill until you need them.

Variations:

You can add some flavors to the batter depending on how you want to serve the crepes. For example if they are going to be filled with something sweet (like for breakfast or dessert) you could add some lemon peel or vanilla extract to the batter. If they will be filled with something savory, you could try some garlic powder or black pepper in the batter.

Once the crepes are made, the fillings are almost limitless. We ate crepes at a restaurant one time that served chocolate and banana crepes with whipped cream! Delish! What about using Nutella -WOW!

We were thinking about making a video showing the different steps to making crepes. Please let us know if you would like to see a video here explaining the whole crepe deal in more details.

5 Mother’s Day Brunch Ideas

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Mother’s Day Brunch is one of my favorite meals. Now, I am not a mother, but I enjoy planning and plotting different ideas to make for my Mother for her brunch. Trader Joe’s has a lot of wonderful products that you can use to make your Mother’s Day Brunch special. Beyond food, there are flowers, drinks and especially champagne -eeks!

This year I have been checking out different items each time I go to Trader Joe’s to get some ideas. I thought I would share some of these ideas with you, to try and help you generate some ideas of your own. (Maybe I will have to cook a few ahead of time, just to make sure they are good, right?)

1. Pancakes
Yes, we love making Pancakes for Mother’s Day Brunch. I feel like they are a great celebration food and they can be plain, or jazzed up with a few extra additions. We like to use Trader Joe’s Buttermilk Pancake & All Purpose Baking Mix to keep it easy. We like to use Trader Joe’s Pure Maple syrup to top our pancakes. Another great idea is to “melt” Mom’s favorite jam and use that as syrup on the pancakes.

2. Crepes
OK… getting a bit tricky here, but Crepes for Mother’s Day Brunch are wonderful, elegant and just plain fun.  Again we use the Trader Joe’s Buttermilk Pancake & All Purpose Baking Mix as a base (keep it kinda easy)  for making the crepes. We use 1cup of the Baking Mix, 1 cup of water, 1 egg and whisk this all together. Add more water if needed to make a THIN batter. You can fill the crepes with a number of goodies. We like rubbing them with soft butter and sprinkling with a cinnamon-sugar mixture OR filling with a spoonful of Trader Joe’s Sour Cream and a spoonful of Jam.

3. Hash
Yep, a scary confession but my mother loves hash for breakfast. So for her, Trader Joe’s Roast Beef Hash is the perfect item for her. This package is ready to heat-and-eat and serve along with fried eggs. This is my Mother’s idea of a perfect Mother’s Day Brunch

4. Garden Scrambled Eggs
What about scrambled eggs? We like to make Garden Scrambled eggs with diced tomatoes, sliced green onions, mushrooms, ham, bacon, leftover veggies or cheese (use any or all of these suggestions). Serve with some crisp toast.

5. Mexican  Fiesta Brunch idea
Well, with Cinco de Mayo only a few days before Mother’s day, perhaps your Mother would like to continue the Mexican food theme? Serve up some fried eggs with some Sonoran Caviar (See Recipe here), and sour cream- OR make scrambled eggs and add green chilies and cheese. Either could be served with some warm tortillas on the side.

So enjoy these 5 Mother’s Day Brunch ideas. We hope they spark some creativity in you.  Drop us a note and tell us what you served for Mother’s Day this year.