Well hello everybody, a special episode today as we look over one of France’s greatest holiday,
“La Chandeleur”, known as “Candlemas” in English, the day of the crêpes!
But what is Candlemas and what makes it so great?
Well stay tune as I briefly go over its history and then show you how to make these very crêpes.
Unless you just want to know the recipe to stuff yourself, and in that case, skip to
the timestamp in the description…
In France, and around the world, Candlemas is celebrated on the 2nd of February,
which is 40 days after Christmas, the supposed birth of Baby Jesus.
According to the Gospel of Luke, this date, therefore, symbolizes the time
when Jesus was brought to Jerusalem to be presented to God.
As such, Candlemas is also called “The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus”.
According to the Torah, it would have also been the day the Virgin Mary
got purified after giving birth, hence why it is also referred to “The Feast of the
Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary”.
Yes, that is a lot of names with a lot of words.
You can imagine why the holiday is heavily centered on the aspect of purification and,
if the word “candle” in Candlemas didn’t tip you off, on light since Jesus often referred
himself as “The Light of the World.”
It is probably no coincidence that these celebrations occurred during February since, from the Ancient
Roman times, it had always been a period of purification.
The word February, itself, coming from the Latin word “Februa”, an ancient celebration
focused on purifying yourself after too many orgies.
The holiday is actually one of the oldest feasts of the Christian church with texts
recounting sermons as early as the 4th century in Jerusalem.
But at first it was a relatively minor celebration, likely because of a lack of crêpes.
That changed during the Justinian plague in 541, which broke out in Constantinople and
killed thousands.
As a result, Emperor Justinian ordered a period of fasting and prayer, and on the 2nd of February,
a solemn prayer to ask for deliverance from evil, which apparently worked.
And as any good scientist would tell you, correlation does equal causation.
That miracle was thus attributed to this celebration and subsequently, Candlemas became much more
important.
But then, why crêpes?
Well, other than the obvious answer that they are freaking delicious, tradition wants that
Pope Gelasius the First had pancakes distributed to poor Pilgrims came to celebrate Candlemas
in Rome.
Although it is believed that it actually came from a Pre-Roman tradition of offering cakes
during the Lupercalia, a celebration later known as “Februa” and that took place
on the 15th of February.
Finally, its round shape and gold color is reminiscent of the solar disc, and thus, symbolizes
the return of Spring after the cold and dark pit that is winter.
But also, reminiscent of the halo often depicted on portraits of saints.
But frankly, one of the beauties of being secular is that you don’t need to know all
this.
You don’t need to bother with the boring prayers and masses, and the challenging fasting
parts.
No, being secular means you get to enjoy the fun parts of religious holidays, and the fun
parts only.
And to me, that means stuffing myself with crêpes for an entire day!
So on to the recipe.
For the recipe, you will need 250 grams of flour, 60 grams of butter, don’t bother
softening it since it’s going to be melted, 5 grams of salt, 6 whole eggs, 600 millimeters
of milk, 4 table spoons of water and finally, some gnôle, which you guys call
“Eau de Vie”.
Now, if your great grand-mother didn’t think of bottling some gnôle, then blame her for
her lack of foresight and pick any good, strong liquor like Cognac or a dark rum.
To start, you’re going to want to heat your milk on a medium – low setting and leave
it there until it is just about boiling.
Do NOT let the milk boil as it spills over very quickly.
While you wait for the milk to inevitably spill over, take a large bowl, which in France
we call “Cul de Poule”, meaning Chicken’s ass, and pour in your flour.
With a clean finger, make a well in the middle where you will crack all your eggs in and
then use a whisk to combine them together.
Once that’s done, add the salt and the water, and whisk again to incorporate it all.
At this point, you might think this looks all very bland and, like most problems in life,
we can fix that with some alcohol.
Add four teaspoons of whatever alcohol you chose.
Although, if you’re clumsy enough, you might spill over half the bottle by “accident”
wink wink.
And now I can hear concerned mothers wondering if this recipe is safe for their precious
blond child.
Well, I am no expert, but I am pretty sure the alcohol burns off when you cook them.
As far as I know, I’ve been eating these ever since I was child and while I am overweight,
I am not a drunk.
With your dough nice and boozy, and hopefully yourself too, you want to whisk again to combine
all this together and put this on the side while you take what’s left of your milk
after half of it poured over unto the floor.
In the hot milk, you want to add the butter to melt it together into buttery milk mixture.
This is one of the particularities of this recipe as the abundance of butter it demands
ensures you do not have to grease your pan between each crêpe while giving them a delightful,
buttery taste.
Once the butter is entirely melted, you want to slowly pour the milk mixture into your
batter with one hand while vigorously whisking with your other hand.
It is important that you whisk vigorously as to avoid forming lumps!
And voilà!
If you’re making exclusively sugary crepes, you can add a table spoon of sugar or two
just for taste although your toppings should be sweet enough.
Otherwise, you’re done.
Quick and easy right?
Covered, the dough should last a couple of days in the fridge but don’t keep it too
long since it’s raw eggs, milk and flour.
And now on to making crêpes.
And we can do that immediately because, unlike most crêpe recipes, this dough doesn’t need
to rest!
For this, you want a shallow and wide pan.
In France, most households have designated “crêpes” pan just for that, which shows
how seriously we take this holiday.
I’m sure you can find a similar pan on Amazon.
You want to set your heat on high and make sure your pan gets very warm.
When your pan is hot enough, have your Grandma lightly grease it since you’re incapable
of doing anything yourself.
Quickly mix your batter to make sure flour didn’t fall to the bottom, which I recommend
doing regularly.
And then take a huge scoop of batter, cover your hot pan and just pour back into the bowl
any excess dough.
And now, you just have to wait.
Eventually, the crêpe will stick off the pan by itself and that’s when you pretty much
know it’s cooked. (That side is cooked)
You can gently look under to make sure though.
If they’re clean, don’t be shy and use your little fingers.
And now that you’re ready, confidently take the pan in your hand and firmly jerk it upward
to beautifully flip the … Et merde.
Anyway, nothing editing cannot hide.
Bravo!
You now know how to make crepes!
Thus, making you more French than this abomination.
Now, since 8 table spoons of bathtub alcohol wasn’t enough, how about we make a Crêpe
Flambée?
For this, pick a strong alcohol, in this case, I chose a Dark Rum, and warm it up on a low
fire.
Meanwhile, make another crepe which you will then cover with Brown sugar while your mother
refuses to leave the camera’s field of view.
When the alcohol is warm, make sure everyone you wish to impress, or intimidate, is in
the room and remove it from the fire.
With a box of matches nearby, confidently pour the alcohol over the crêpes.
And then quickly get your box of matches, light it up and hover it ABOVE the alcohol.
Here, we didn’t use all of the Rum cos the crepes was for my 6 years old nephew.
Nevertheless, the flames are quite impressive and, if you still have your eyebrows left,
you will definitely turn on your date.
These crepes are a great way to spend a good afternoon with friends and family.
They’re quick, easy and fun to make, and you can put a wide range of toppings on them.
Jam, Nutella if you don’t care about tropical forests, chocolate sauce, custard, fruits,
more alcohol, fruits in alcohol, alcohol with alcohol and more.
Personally, I love covering my crepes with “crème de marrons”, a delicacy that you
might find in the hipster aisle of your hipster supermarket.
Or even just covering my crepes with brown sugar and then pouring the juice of half a
lemon unto it, to create a sweet and acidic wondrous paste.
Well, thank you for watching.
I hope you will give crepes a try someday, I know I always have a good time whenever
I do.
I intend on uploading more recipe in the future so if you enjoyed this, please consider subscribing
and further supporting the channel by liking, commenting and sharing.
This was Barris.
I will see you in two weeks, but until then my friends,
Merde!