Six Sister's Stuff; Red Velvet Crepes

Valentine's Day has come and gone, but I just had to share the great recipe we tried for breakfast on Valentine's morning; Red Velvet Crepes! I saw this recipe in my Facebook feed (if you haven't "liked" Six Sister's Facebook page, you need to!!!) and just had to try it. I made up my own recipe for the filling and added strawberries, and it turned out fantastic. I am including my filling recipe and some helpful tips at the bottom.

Red Velvet Crepes

Author: Six Sisters Stuff

Prep time:  15 mins

Cook time:  15 mins

Total time:  30 mins

Serves: 20

Ingredients

• 1½ cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1½ cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons cocoa
• 1 tablespoon red food coloring
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• dash of salt

Instructions

1. In a medium size bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar until fully combined.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the buttermilk, milk, egg, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, food coloring, salt, and butter until well combined.
3. Pour the liquids into the bowl with the dry ingredients.
4. Whisk together the wet and dry ingredients until well combined and there are only a few small bumps.
5. The mixture should be pretty smooth and not thick like pancake batter. If it is too thick, add a tablespoon or two of milk.
6. Grease a medium small skillet, and pour about a ¼ cup of the crepe mixture into the pan.
7. Circulate the pan so the batter spreads evenly across.
8. Place back on the burner and cook for about 30 seconds on each side.
9. Serve with cream cheese, whipped cream, Nutella, chocolate sauce, strawberries, or powdered sugar

Marsha's Filling Recipe

Cream Filling:

4 oz. cream cheese, softened (1/2 a brick)

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2-1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 carton Cool-Whip

Strawberries:

Fresh strawberries, washed, stemmed, sliced

Granulated sugar

Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Fold in Cool-Whip. Set aside.

Mix sliced strawberries with enough granulated sugar to sweeten and bring out the juices (amount will vary depending on how many berries you want to use, but just sprinkle some over the top and gently toss to coat). Set aside.

* For juicier strawberries, you will want to let them sit for awhile, so either prepare them the day before or very first thing before you make your crepe batter.

The filling recipe is also great as a fresh fruit dip. If you want to use a whole brick of cream cheese and a whole tub of Cool-Whip just to not have left-overs, that is fine, but it makes a  LOT!

This crepe recipe makes quite a few crepes at approximately 1/4 cup of batter per crepe. So, unless you have multiple pans to cook several crepes at once, I was standing at the stove for like an hour to cook all my batter. We have a family of five, and right now my kids can be a little picky about anything new, so we ended up with maybe half of the crepes left. When they get older, I am sure my boys will be able to practically finish off the entire batch, but for now, I think I will do a half batch next time and save myself the leftovers and some time in the kitchen cooking.

However, the leftovers store and freeze great, if you separate each crepe with a piece of wax paper. I had two for breakfast again this morning, and they were still great! Chewier if you microwave them (only ten seconds to warm back up), but they would heat up really nicely and fast in a toaster oven or standard oven in a matter of a minute or so.

Crepes are ready to flip over when the top of the crepe starts to appear "dry" and the edges are starting to crisp. Once flipped, since the crepe is already mostly cooked, it only takes a few seconds on the second side to be done. The instructions say 30 seconds per side, but I found it to be more like a minute or two on the first side and 15-30 seconds on the second. If you try to flip them too soon, they are too delicate, doughy, and unstable to easily flip. I cooked my crepes at the "4" setting on my "10" setting stove, so just under halfway up the temperature allowance. Also, if you make crepes very much, you will often hear that the first crepe is the "throw-away" crepe that tempers the pan for you for future crepes, so don't be afraid to toss the first one if it looks funny and know that the rest will probably be better.

Also, when you are a few seconds away from flipping, I run my spatula around the outer edge of the crepe to loosen it from the pan. This helps release the crepe from the pan so it doesn't tear.

Lastly, this recipe calls for melted butter in the batter rather than putting some butter directly in the pan a little at a time to help the crepes not stick. I had mixed results from this. First of all, the cold milk made the butter reharden into clumps in my batter, but they were tiny and immediately melted when the batter hit the pan and weren't problematic, but they just seemed odd during the batter making/scooping process to have these little hard bits floating around. I don't know if I will make the batter the exact same way again next time, or if I will try to add the butter very last thing, maybe after some of the other ingredients have lost their chill to see if it incorporates better, or if I will just add the butter directly to the pan, or just use non-stick spray instead.