Daring to try vegan crêpes for me, as someone from Brittany, is a real challenge. I took them up yesterday. My wife wanted pancakes and I’d been wanting to experiment with a vegan crepe recipe for a while. This was the perfect opportunity. We were a week late for Candlemas. On the 2nd of February we were busy celebrating Imbolc. I’ll do it again for Shrove Tuesday because the result was really good. They were absolutely delicious and also a lot less fatty.
You may know that I like to go back to the source of everything. Well, originally, crêpes were made without eggs, milk or butter, as these ingredients were often far too rare and expensive to slip in everywhere. Traditional galettes were made from buckwheat, salt and water – and that was that.
Quel est le secret pour des crêpes inratables
- Starch: to bind the eggs and make them lighter. Choose corn, potato, rice or arrowroot starch, it doesn’t matter!
- Fats: for fluffy crepes. Vegetable oils (olive, grapeseed, deodorised sunflower or hazelnut) or, better still, oilseed purees, which give the crêpes more body (cashew, almond, hazelnut puree…).
- Protein: for crepes that hold together. Soya milk is best, but you can also opt for oilseed milks (almond, hazelnut, etc.) for a very fluffy result.
- Patience: the first crepe is always a dud… because you wanted to turn it over too quickly, because the pan wasn’t hot enough or because you’re impatient gourmets, so calm down! Grab a newspaper, listen to the radio, chat to your cat… and store the crepes one by one on a plate and under a damp cloth to keep them warm and prevent them from drying out.
- rest: a pancake batter needs to rest for at least 1/2 hour, to make sure there are no lumps and that they hold together well when cooked, so go and read a blog in the meantime… mine, for example! Don’t hesitate to extend the batter a little if it has thickened a lot after resting.
- a good frying pan: if you’re using stainless steel, ceramic or cast iron, oil your pan well, otherwise your crêpes will tear! Don’t be shy: a little coconut oil and your crepes will be indestructible!
Come on, enough of the blah, blah, blah… we’re going to blow it all up!
Basic vegan crepes
For 12 sweet or savoury crepes – medium size
Ingredients:
- 300 g wheat or spelt flour (white, beige, wholemeal…) for the sweet pancakes or buckwheat flour for the galettes – gluten-free option, see below*.
- 75 g starch (corn, potato, rice, arrowroot…)
- 3 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil (sunflower, grapeseed) or oilseed puree*.
- 2 tbsp (10 g) sugar for sweet pancakes.
- 800 ml plant milk
- 2 pinches of salt
- (opt.) A pinch of vanilla * (optional)
–>*For gluten-free crepes, opt for a homemade mix of chestnut flour and white rice flour (170g rice flour to 80g chestnut flour). As chestnut flour likes water, you may need to add a little more water (or vegetable milk) for lighter pancakes. You can also use soya or chickpea flour in addition to rice flour (170 g wholemeal rice flour to 80 g soya or chickpea flour), for softer pancakes.
For a neutral taste, use cashew or white almond puree. Alternatively, treat yourself to whole almond or hazelnut puree!
Replace with orange blossom water, orange zest, cinnamon…
Preparation
Heat a frying pan over a high heat, add a dab of coconut oil (or other cooking oil), and pour in the contents of a ladle, turning the pan well so that it is completely covered with batter. When small bubbles form on the surface, turn the pancake over with a spatula. Reduce the heat to medium-high for the next crêpes. Store the crêpes, garnish and enjoy!
Mix the flour(s), cornflour, sugar, salt and vanilla in a large bowl.
Add the oilseed puree or oil.
Pour in the plant milk a little at a time, mixing well with a whisk. When the batter becomes elastic and homogeneous, pour in the milk more quickly and mix until you have a smooth pancake batter. The basic pancake batter is fairly liquid, whereas the gluten-free version needs to be thicker (otherwise the crepe will fall apart when cooked).
Leave to rest for at least 1/2 hour.
