Crepes-truly the best recipe I have found It is our tradition that every New Year we (my husband and I) make crepes, be they dessert crepes or savory. Until recently I have leaned towards one crepe recipe, however This year I wanted to make crepes during the summer and I had only one cup of milk in the freezer so I looked for a crepe recipe that uses one cup of milk. In my search I stumbled across this crepe recipe from an old Sunday New York Times magazine that I had kept (see it pays to keep the junk you love). Since my find, this summer, I have made this recipe twice. You can eat these crepes without anything on them-literally. They are delicious. This recipe consists of crepes, fruit, carmelized sugar, and ice cream Note: You can make the crepes in a non stick 7-8 inch frying pan or you can use a French crepe pan of the same size. I have used non stick however for $10-$12 dollars the French crepe pan is almost foolproof. If you do use a French crepe pan then don’t use the pan for anything else (that’s the French method-so they say). I just wipe the pan clean And hang it up. So far it’s worked beautifully. 1 cup milk (preferably whole milk) 1 tablespoon Amaretto liquor or ¼ -½ tsp. almond extract (could use vanilla or any other flavor that you like) (if using extract and not liquor you will need one more tbspn of milk) ¾ cup flour 3 eggs – lightly beaten 3 tablespoon butter – melted (use microwave oven on 20-30 seconds- the butter should not be hot but just melted) 1 tablespoon sugar (if you have vanilla sugar you can use it) ½ tsp salt sift flour and salt into a large bowl. Stir in sugar. In center of flour mixture add eggs and using a fork, combine flour with eggs. Stir in the milk till combined. Do not pour the milk in all at once try to combine at a steady stream. You are trying to remove as many lumps of flour as possible. Add the butter and liquor or the extract (don’t forget the tablespoon of milk if using extract). Use a whisk if you need to remove as many of the flour lumps as you can. Let the mixture sit at least 30 minutes. You can put in refrigerator in the morning and use at night or you can make the day before. When measuring the amount of batter needed to make the crepe use a little less than ¼ cup measure. Season your pot with a bit of butter pour in the batter, swirl around till batter covers the bottom of pan. You don’t need much butter for the pan – I believe that the amount of butter and eggs in the batter takes away the need for a lot of butter. Place the crepes on plate lined with wax paper or plastic wrap. You may freeze the crepes if you wish or make them ahead if you wish. This makes approximately 10-15 crepes. The fruit You can use any fruit or combination (apples, pears, plums would all be nice) – here is what I used: 3 peaches – juicy, ripe, two white, one yellow – sliced off the pit into ¼ inch, or so size ½ cup to ¾ cup blueberries, ½ pint fresh raspberries butter – as needed cinnamon a pinch of salt in a heated sauté pan add the butter. Add peaches in one layer and cook till a bit soft, not mushy but not raw either. Sprinkle with cinnamon and pinch of sugar. Place in a bowl and mix in the blueberries and raspberries. Place aside. (can be made a day ahead) When ready to make the crepes to serve make the caramelized sugar with: ½ cup sugar 1 tablespoon butter 2 tablespoons grand mariner In a frying pan sprinkle sugar, evenly, over the bottom of pan. Heat till sugar begins to melt. Roll melted sugar over unmelted sugar till all is melted – let the sugar get a bit of brown color adds the butter mix together. I added a bit of water to this mixture because I felt it was a bit thick for what I wanted to do. Assembly- make sure the ice cream is in the consistency you want. We used Baskin and Robbins French vanilla – it’s up to you what flavor you want to use. Make sure crepes are at least at room temperature. Heat the fruit that you made in a microwave oven. Take the crepe, one at a time and place in pan with caramelized sugar so that one side of the crepe is bathed in the syrup. Add a bit of the fruit mixture in the middle of crepe and fold crepe, in half over the fruit. Do the same for another crepe. You will now have two crepes folded in half filled with Fruit. Cook for a few minutes, till crepes are relatively hot. Sprinkle crepes with the grand marnier. Cook a minute more. Place on plate. Scoop Ice cream on top of crepe and you can decorate with a few raspberries, if you wish. Serve with champagne or a Nice white wine or even a dessert wine. speak to you soon. pi