Saturday, April 7, 2012

Gluten Free Grain Free Crepes Recipe

Grain free crepes with mashed potato filling
and mushroom sauce
 I like crepes. They can be used to make a variety of dishes, both sweet and savory, both fancy and less so. And they are pretty frugal too. You can make sweet crepes filled with chocolate, whipped cream, caramel, and/or fruit, or you can fill them with meat or vegetables or potatoes or cheese. You can use them in lieu of a flatbread for sandwich fillings or in place of tortillas for wraps. You can even slice these to make grain free "noodles". There's one more cool thing you can do with them, but I'll have to share my recipe for that tomorrow. :-D

Various recipes exist for potato starch crepes, but most of them have a really high ratio of eggs to potato starch, making them on the slightly more expensive side (not to mention having a more omelet like texture). Here's the recipe I've been using for the past few years to make my gluten free crepes. They're pretty delicious- my children gobble them up as soon as they're ready- I tend to need to make twice more than I would for the dish I'm making since so many of them never make it past my kids' mouths. If potato starch doesn't work for you (either because of cost or health or allergies) you can replace the potato starch with corn starch or tapioca starch.

In case you're daunted, don't be! Making crepes really is a cinch! All it takes is one or two times making it to get the method down pat. And you don't need any special equipment- just a non stick frying pan and a stovetop- no fancy crepe maker.

Gluten Free Grain Free Crepes Recipe

Ingredients:
3 large or extra large eggs
1/2 cup potato starch (or tapioca or corn)
1/3 cup water
1 pinch of salt (omit if making sweet and replace with 1 tsp sweetener)
Oil

Instructions:
1. Put a drop of oil in the bottom of a non stick skillet. Wipe the oil out with a napkin or a cloth so that just the tiniest smudge of oil remains.

2. Mix the ingredients together in a bowl, whisking well to ensure no clumps.

3. Heat up the skillet, then pour between 1/8 and 1/4 cup of batter into the skillet, then pick up the skillet and move it around so the entire bottom gets covered by batter. (If there is a thick puddle of batter at the bottom of the skillet, use less batter for the next crepe. If there isn't enough batter to cover the bottom, use a little more batter for the next crepe.

4. Cook on a medium high heat until the edges of the crepe start pulling away from the edges of the pan.

See the bottom edge starting to pull away?
5. From the edge that is pulling away from the pan, use your finger to pick up the crepe and flip it over. Cook it on the other side for about 10 seconds, then slide the crepe onto a plate.



6. Repeat with the rest of the batter.

7. If stuffing, place one crepe on a plate, then fill with a line of filling.


8. Roll it up.


9. Top with sauce.


This recipe produces a recipe that is pretty flexible. Its somewhat stretchy so it doesn't rip easily.
I usually find I need to double this recipe.

If you have no need for gluten free crepes, here's my recipe for regular crepes. Here's my recipe for gluten free buckwheat crepes.

Have you ever made crepes before? Do you find it hard or easy? Or do you find them to intimidating to try?
If you've made grain free crepes before, what ratio of starch to egg and water do you use?
What do you use to fill your crepes? Do you think this is a recipe you'd try?


1 comment:

  1. I usually make a coconut flour crepe, but I am out of coconut flour so I am going to try your recipe. Thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete

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