Tuesdays With Julia: French Crêpes

     I, like many home chefs, often look to Julia Child for help when certain recipes continually give me trouble. In fact, I'm such a food nerd that I once attempted to read Mastering the Art of French Cooking from cover to cover. I only made it through the soups before realizing that that probably wasn't the best use of my time, but still, I read enough to know that she's a very trustworthy source. All summer, I toyed with the idea of doing a tuesdays with Julia series, something akin to Pie Monday, but that idea somehow got put on the back burner. But today, I'm finally making it happen!
     One of my most embarrassing culinary shortcomings had until this week, been my inability to properly make a French crêpe. It was essential for me to master this skill, particularly because I'm not a pancake person. American pancakes are rich, filling, syrup sponges that in my opinion, are not a great way to start the day. Crêpes, however, are not only more enjoyable to eat, but also more sophisticated and worldly, not to mention endlessly versatile. But every time I tried to make them, I somehow ended up with a pile of mush. A month or so ago, I tried out my new crêpe maker for the first time and unfortunately decided to use the recipe included in the instruction manual. This was the result:

Yep...nailed it.

     Obviously, I needed to go back to the drawing board on this one, so I suddenly got an idea that should have come to me much sooner: Consult Julia. When it comes to French recipes, I can always count on her. So using her recipe, which works for both sweet and savory crêpes, I went back to basics and used a plain old small frying pan to get a much improved result. You can put pretty much anything you want in a crêpe. One time one of my housemates ate one with Nutella and sliced ham, but that's another story. Anyway, today I decided to branch out from my usual Nutella, banana, strawberry trifecta and make caramel apple walnut crêpes instead. So I have to credit Julia for the crêpes themselves, but the apple filling is an original.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup flour
2/3 cup cold milk
2/3 cup cold water
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt

For filling:
2 small apples of your favorite variety
as many chopped walnuts as you want
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
optional whipped cream
optional powdered sugar

For caramel sauce:
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

Note: I got six small/regular sized crêpes out of this recipe, which was about 2-3 servings, but or course this depends on the size of your pan. If this is your first time making them, I recommend smaller ones because they're easier to flip without breaking.

1. In a medium bowl, whisk all of the wet ingredients into the flour. Make sure there are no lumps. Refrigerate the batter for at least 30 minutes. (This is important.)

2. While you wait, finely chop your apples and walnuts. I usually prefer Granny Smith, but today, all we had were Galas, which don't taste terrific but sure are pretty.

3. In a medium nonstick frying pan, cook the apples and nuts, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar to caramelize them. This should only take about 5 minutes over medium heat. Set aside.

4. To cook the crêpes, spray a small frying pan with Pam and preheat it, plot a few tablespoons of batter into it, and turn the pan until the batter spreads out into a circle. You want to use just enough batter to evenly coat the bottom of the pan, but crêpes should always be as thin as possible. That's why a really runny batter is essential.

5. Cook them over medium heat for about 1 minute per side. The first few of mine could have been browned a little more, but I was too afraid of burning them. Try to get them a little bit browned on both sides, but don't let them cook to a crisp. They are ready to flip when you can easily run a spatula around the edge. And you are allowed to flip them more than once if necessary.

6. Once you're done cooking the crêpes, make the caramel sauce by melting the butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until it gets bubbly.
7. Assemble the crêpes by spreading a little caramel sauce and a line of the apple mixture on one side. Then just roll it up, and finish off the plate with more of the apple mixture and/or caramel and/or whipped cream and/or powdered sugar.

Enjoy, and stay tuned for today's dessert extravaganza!