Sourdough Crepes

duonyte's Note:

This recipe comes from a Sunset magazine cookbook. It's a great way of using up starter that you would otherwise be dumping when refreshing your starter. Start it before you go to bed, and you'll be ready to go in the morning. Yield is approximate - the size of your eggs, the ambient humidity, the vigor of your starter, the exact size of your pan, will all affect yield.

• Total Time: 9 hrs
• Prep Time: 1 hrs
• Cook Time: 8 hrs

Ingredients:

Yield: 20 crepes

• ¾ cup sourdough starter , at room temperature
• 1 cup warm water (about 100 deg.)
• 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs , at room temperature
• 3 tablespoons salad oil
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• butter

Directions:

1. In a bowl, stir together starter, water, and flour until smoothly blended. Cover and let stand in a warm place until very bubbly (about 8 hours).
2. Beat together eggs and oil, then stir into batter. Combine salt, baking soda, and sugar; sprinkle over batter and stir well to blend. Cover lightly and let stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
3. Place a 6 or 7 inches crepe pan or other flat-bottomed frying pan over medium heat. When pan is hot, add 1/4 teaspoons butter and swirl to coat surface. At once, pour in 2 tbl. batter, quickly tilting pan so batter flows over entire flat surface (don't worry about a few little holes). Cook until surface appears dry and edge is lightly browned. With a spatula, turn and brown other side. Turn crepe out of pan onto a plate. Repeat, stacking crepes, until all batter is used.
4. A nice way to serve is to roll them up into a tube, serving 3 or 4 per person, with jam, powdered sugar or maple syrup. Or use in any other recipe calling for crepes.
5. Crepes can be wrapped airtight and kept in refrigerator for a week. Let warm to room temperature before separating, to prevent tearing. They may also be frozen.
6. Note1: a standard coffee measure is 2 tbl.
7. Note2: if your batter is too thick, stir in room temperature water, a couple of tablespoons at a time, until batter flows easily. You may find that you need 3 or 4 tbl. of batter to coat pan appropriately, but somehow the yield ends up the same.
8. Note3: I recommend using a non-stick pan. You can then reduce the butter to just a smidge per crepe. The pat of butter you get at the restaurant is 1 tsp., to help you judge the amount needed.
9. Note3: try adding some herbs or spices to the batter: herbes de Provence, thyme, cinnamon, nutmeg are all good. I'd start with about 1 tbl. of dried herbs, 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoons ground herbs or spices, per recipe. I usually cook some plain, adding a smaller amount of herbs or spices to the remaining batter.

Reviews

[Queen Roachie]

These are great! Had them this morning with home made lemon curd and sweetened strawberries and blueberries. The sourdough gives a light, airy texture to these, and lends a wonderful tangy scent when they are cooking, but doesn't overpower the delicate crepe. Will definitely make these again when I think to plan ahead.... as I threw the starter mixture together around midnight after forgetting all evening to do it.

[Galley Wench]

Wow, these are good! I hate throwing away any starter so it's perfect for me! I cut the recipe in half, and filled them with orange marmalade. I made these several weeks ago, but got so busy with ZWT 5 . . . forgot to review! Sorry!