Ah, the crêpe, that paper-thin disk of soft and pliable dough. The pancake’s skinny cousin. Fill them, fold them, snack them. Wrap one in a cone of parchment paper and pretend you’re on the streets of Paris. Circular snacks just begging to be stuffed and eaten, either sweet or savory.
On an ingredient level, crêpes are relatively simple to pull together; their batter is just a combination of everyday pantry items. It’s their shaping that requires a deft hand, agility, and considerable confidence. There’s the pour, the swish, the wave of the wrist—it can take some time to master. And without a level of finesse, you can easily find yourself with crêpes that are undercooked, uneven, torn, or burnt. If only there were an easier way!
Well, maybe there is.
Just last week, a crêpe-making hack surfaced on YouTube that has me all sorts of awed. The video is featured on the account ViralHog and is said to have originally come from Brazil. To achieve the crêpe’s delicate shape, the disembodied hands in the video turn things upside down, literally. They dip the bottom of a pan (the bottom!!!) into the batter and use the curved underside to heat and cook the crêpe. You can see the batter progressively crisp as the downward slope of the pan’s bottom allows the finished crêpe to curl at the edges. Check it out here:
I have to admit, it’s quite impressive. The whole process takes about 45 seconds, and the cook ends up with a sizable stack of what look like nicely browned finished crêpes. This method seems great for when you’ve got to bust out a whole bunch of crêpes in just a bit of time. Imagine how easy it would make the prep for a layered crêpe cake! Next time I make crêpes, I’m definitely going to give this hack a try. I just need to remember to give the bottom of my pan a good scrub before I begin.
Would you give this one a go, or do you already have a trick of your own? Let us know in the comments below.
(via Food52)