- Hey, I'm John Kanell,
and today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making delicious crepes Suzette.
So let's get started.
First off, we're measuring out one cup of flour
into a small bowl.
And let me tell you,
you do not need any special equipment to make these.
They sound very fancy, but they're actually really easy.
120 grams exactly, okay.
I'm making this in my blender today,
but if you want, you could use a bowl and a whisk.
Gives us a little bit more work.
I also melted three tablespoons of butter
to have that at the ready.
Now, into a blender,
I am adding 3/4 of a cup of whole milk,
1/2 cup of water,
two large room temperature eggs.
And by the way,
crepes are another amazing thing that you can make ahead.
So you can have this batter overnight in the fridge
just hanging out,
and then make your crepes in the morning.
So it's like zero effort.
You also want one tablespoon of sugar.
This gives you a little bit of sweetness,
but it also softens the dough
so that it'll have like this melt-in-your-mouth consistency.
You also want an 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt,
which is just a little pinch.
In you go.
Crepes Suzette is an orange crepe.
So we're gonna have a little bit
of orange flavor in the crepe,
and that's coming from orange zest.
Using my microplane or rasp
just to get like 1/2 a teaspoon or so of zest.
Now we're gonna blend this up for about 15 seconds,
just so everything is nice and combined
before the flour goes in.
And if you wanted to, this could be done with a whisk.
I almost forgot that melted butter.
What am I thinking?
So that would've been an accident,
and crepes Suzette was actually invented by accident.
There was a dish being served to the Prince of Wales.
It was in a chafing dish,
which has a little flame to keep things warm.
The crepes caught on fire from the chafing flame.
And the guy was like,
"Oh my gosh, everything must be ruined,"
but there was no time to fix it.
So he served the dish that had been flambeed,
'cause there was brandy in the sauce.
And it tasted delicious,
so crepes Suzette was born.
(bell dings)
I added one cup of flour and I'm gonna blend it up.
I blended it on medium speed,
just until everything was combined.
No need to slosh this around.
We're gonna let this set for 15 minutes
while we make the sauce.
It'll give the gluten some time to relax,
and everything will just spread out really evenly
and have a wonderful, tender texture.
(bell dings)
You want a big pan.
And everything just goes right in there,
starting with the zest.
So two teaspoons of orange zest.
Depending on how you measure that,
it's like the zest of 1 1/2 oranges.
So we zested 1/2 for the crepes, 1 1/2 for the sauce.
And you can do this two ways.
So traditionally, a crepes Suzette,
if you go to a fancy French restaurant,
will be flambeed at the table,
and they'll like light everything on fire
and serve it there.
But when you're making things at home,
unless it's for a dinner party
and you're really trying to get that moment,
it's just easier to do it the way we're gonna do today,
where we serve everything warm and delicious
but we're not gonna catch things on fire.
I will tell you how to do that
and maybe we'll try it out, too, we'll see.
Now we need some fresh orange juice.
And I love oranges.
We grew up with orange trees at my house.
And my mom, who's from Mexico,
actually, like, fell in love with French cuisine,
so one of the things she would always like to try out
are different French dishes.
And she loved making crepes Suzette for dinner parties.
Fresh orange juice is totally different
from what you get out of a bottle from the store,
unless it says "freshly squeezed orange juice."
If it says "made with freshly squeezed oranges,"
that means that like a year ago they juiced the oranges,
they went into some crazy giant silo,
and then they added orange flavorings to it a year later,
when they took it out of the silo.
That's why it tastes different than fresh orange juice,
if you were curious.
That's gonna be about two oranges,
but maybe three if yours are a little small or dry.
3/4 of a cup of orange freshly juiced into my pan.
I'm adding 1/2 cup of unsalted butter,
cutting it into little pieces.
And this is gonna give us a wonderful richness
and great mouth feel for the sauce.
It'll also help soften the acidity of the oranges.
The sweetness is gonna get amped up
with 1/2 cup, or 100 grams, of granulated sugar.
My butter's all melted.
This is gonna come to a boil over medium high heat,
and then we're gonna reduce to a simmer.
And this is gonna simmer down.
However, you're gonna add the final ingredient in this,
and that's a really nice orange liqueur.
You could use a triple sec if you want,
but find a nice triple sec for it,
because it doesn't have a ton of flavor.
A nicer one like a Cointreau or a Grand Marnier
is gonna be brandy-based
and give you just more depth of flavor.
And if you're worried about the alcohol,
it all burns off while this cooks.
So if you're gonna flambe this,
you want to add the alcohol at the very end.
It'll be really hot.
So hot sauce, alcohol goes in, light it on fire,
and you could pour it on top of your crepes.
It's a wonderful presentation.
But if you're not doing that,
you can add about 1/3 of a cup of your alcohol in,
and it'll give you that wonderful depth of flavor.
And as it simmers down, all the alcohol will cook off.
And the nice thing is that, as soon as the sauce is done,
your crepes are gonna be ready to make.
(clock ticks)
My sauce is almost thickened,
but because I've been filming
and it takes a while to move cameras around,
this has rested for 15 minutes.
So I'm gonna put this on the stove behind me
while we make our crepes.
My sauce is bubbling away behind me.
And just really quickly, today, I'm using a crepe pan.
I got one for Christmas, and I love it.
But you can make this in a regular nonstick large pan,
and it works just fine.
The benefit of this is it's really flat,
so it's easy to take the crepes out.
Pop that over medium heat.
And you have to mind the heat,
because as you continue cooking crepes,
this pan will get hotter and hotter,
so you'll have to adjust the heat down.
You're going to brush butter on here,
and butter is your friend for a multiple number of reasons.
Prevents sticking,
it makes the crepes delicious.
It also gives you that like tender, wonderful crepe.
If your heat's too low,
you'll dry the crepe out and it'll be kind of tough.
And if it's too high, your crepe will burn.
I'm also transferring my batter into a bowl.
That seems nice and hot.
Your first crepe is usually a little not pretty.
I happen to have my crepe swirly tool.
I don't know what it's called.
You don't need it.
It's kind of more trouble than it's worth.
Now we're gonna add 1/4 cup of the batter in.
And you can add it in like I'm doing,
just to give you kind of an even layer.
Use your wet tool, if you have it,
just to spread the batter out of it,
'cause you want a thin layer.
And you're gonna see your crepe cooks really fast.
Put that back into soak.
And this got a little too hot, so we'll see.
You'll know your crepe is done when the top changes texture,
because it'll look a little bit more matte
and lose that glossy consistency.
Okay, there we go.
All right, that first one is like a sacrificial crepe.
It's not the prettiest ever,
but it's gonna taste delicious,
and you can always put it at the bottom of the stack.
People freak out about crepes not being perfect
and whatever else.
But what they don't realize is
you're either rolling them or folding them,
so no one can tell except for you.
So that got a little bit more color than I wanted,
but it's okay.
And I did tear it.
More butter now.
1/4 cup of batter.
We're gonna spread this out a bit.
This is not how you're supposed to use the tool.
You're supposed to do one graceful motion, like this.
I took that off heat.
It's looking nice and syrupy.
This changed texture.
This is better.
It doesn't look good, but this is better.
So I have two sacrificial crepes.
The rest are gonna be fine.
Your pan can't get too hot,
because then your butter will start browning.
And crepes shouldn't have that like dark color.
They should be nice and light and delicate.
Gonna add 1/4 cup of batter in.
Use my crepe tool,
and just get a nice, even layer.
And you flip it over, just like that.
If you don't have one of these,
you could use an offset spatula to pick it up.
This is nice, though,' cause it won't scratch your pan.
It's like a little wooden sword.
Just gonna fold that up.
That looks great.
You wanna see those little dots.
And place it on a tray for later.
You're gonna repeat this process,
making sure to butter in between each crepe
and also reduce temperature
if your pan is getting really hot.
And sometimes you also have to take the pan off of heat
so it can cool down a bit.
(gentle music)
My last crepe is done.
I'm gonna get the sauce back over here
and we're gonna assemble this deliciousness.
If you're flambeing this,
remember, you would've added the alcohol at the very end,
when it's still hot,
immediately light it on fire, and pour.
Today, I'm feeling like just having it the easy way.
So we're gonna add our crepes back into the pan.
And this is on the lowest of heats,
just to keep things warm.
And you can serve it up directly from the pan
or place this back into a serving tray.
And full disclosure,
I did not have the best crepe day.
I don't know what was wrong,
but the stars were not aligned.
Normally, it's so much easier for me.
But even still,
they look totally beautiful
because we fold them into quarters
or we roll them up into rolls.
Any mistakes you have are really gonna be
just private mistakes that no one can see.
It's gonna taste delicious anyways.
Spooning some sauce over the top.
And just like that,
our crepes are done and ready to serve.
That is buttery, bursting with orange flavor,
and just melts on your tongue.
It is so delicious.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like this video,
check out my French playlist.