A French Canadian's Guide to Crepes

As a French Canadian, I grew up on crepes. In fact, crepes were our go-to fast food when my mom didn't know what else to make. "I don't know what to cook tonight," she would say, to which I would inevitably respond, "Let's have crepes!" If they were dinner crepes, she would make them with whole wheat flour and stuff them with something savory like mushrooms and cheese. Morning crepes were generally lighter, made with unbleached white flour and only a little bit of whole grain flour. These usually involved an unrestrained amount of butter and maple syrup. Dark buckwheat crepes were also a frequent choice and those would either be served with a savory filling or with butter and molasses. To this day, a butter and molasses buckwheat crepe is my ultimate snack when I don't feel like making anything complicated. I've learned to whip up a crepe batter in 5 minutes flat. After all, crepes are essentially just flour, eggs, and milk beaten together.

A proper French crepe recipe calls for melted butter but I generally skip it unless I have guests to impress. (It does make the crepes slightly more tender). Cooking the crepes takes a bit more time of course, but with a little practice, you can generally get a steaming dozen on the table in about half an hour or so. So if theres one take-away I want you to get from this post, it's that crepes are easy. Easy, easy, easy. Oui, oui, oui. Crepes are not fancy. And when made with whole grain flour, they're a wholesome nourishing food you can make any time of the day. You just need to keep a few basic tips in mind which I'll outline in my recipe instructions below. Once you've got a handle on those, you'll be laughing and the marvelous world of crepes is all yours.

Let's talk a bit about flour here. Of course, I don't expect you to mill your own rye flour to make these crepes, as I did in the video. You can easily purchase whole rye flour at just about any health food store. (Though if you do happen to have a small kitchen mill, you'll benefit from the incomparable taste of fresh-milled flour).

Of course, crepes made with white flour are deliciously light and tender, but as any nutritionist will tell you, there's not much nutrition in white flour. And crepes can be made with a whole assortment of whole grain flours and still be tender and delicious and not feel like you're eating a health food.

I generally try to keep a ratio of 50% unbleached organic white flour and 50% whole grain flour, but I've also made crepes with 100% whole grain which are delightful. They do lose some of their elasticity and as can be expected, and feature a more robust whole grain flavor. So it's really a matter of personal choice. Feel free to play around with this white to whole grain ratio to suit your personal taste. Do experiment with different flours too. These crepes feature 50% rye flour but you could use spelt instead, or buckwheat.

As you probably know if you follow this blog, I'm just a teeny little bit obsessed with rye. Before I became involved with growing grains, I was more of a spelt girl. I still love baking with spelt, but it's not really a grain we can harvest easily. Spelt and other ancient grains such as emmer and einkorn cant be de-hulled unless you have expensive de-hulling equipment. Rye on the other hand is relatively easy to grow, harvest, and mill into flour. So by default, its become my grain of choice, first by necessity, but lately because I've come to realize how tasty and nutritious it is. In the last few years, I've been excited to learn about rye's outstanding nutrient profile. People often associate rye flour only with dense dark bread. But it's actually a fairly light flour that can be used in all kinds of baked goods. If you're new here, do check out my buttery rye blueberry cookies, rosemary rye brownies, and my cheesecake rye crust. Who knew I was going to become the kooky rye lady? I sure didn't. But I'm kind of glad I did.

As a final note, these rye crepes can be enjoyed sweet or savory. The pear and cheddar is a favorite combination of mine because you get a little bit of both sweet and savory. You can substitute apples for the pears. Or make a different kind of savory filling altogether (spinach, cheese, and ham is delicious). Or just enjoy these with butter and syrup. Whichever way you make them, enjoy and bon appétit!