French Crepes

WHEAT & GLUTEN FREE FRENCH CREPES

"I am not allergic to wheat (although with maturing, I can’t eat as much bread as I used to when I grew up in Europe!) but several of my friends and many of my students are, so I wanted to experiment with different recipes, types of flours and starch and see if I could get close to the original texture. So if you have been diagnosed with Celiac disease or have noticed a frequent allergic reaction to wheat products, you can add this recipe to your gluten free diet.

Gluten is a great source of protein and binding, so when preparing a gluten free crepe, or pancake, the trick is to find replacements that can incorporate the binding and the light texture. When researching various gluten free recipes, I was shocked by the various complicated wheat free flour combinations I found. OMG! I don’t know about you but a recipe that uses 4-5 different types of flours, like potato, sorghum, powder egg replacer, cornstarch is way too labor intensive and not flexible enough to accomodate what I may have in my pantry. Life is short, food should be fun, not a drag!

So I attempted to simplify the batter as much as possible and yet obtain the right consistency and texture. It took several attempts to get it right. The first one, was a fiasco. The recipe called for potato starch, I could only find potato flour, not sure what happened but the batter ended lumpy and thick. As aunt Vula in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding would say: “It no work!” I couldn’t find potato starch in any local store, so that recipe was a no go! But with perseverance, I got it to where it was virtually impossible to tell the difference. Call me a purist, but the look of the food also matters. Using buckwheat may be healthy and safe but your crepes take on a grunge/hippie look that is more on the pancake side than the delicate French crepe. Call me a snob!

So without further adieu, here is the recipe:

1/3 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1 heaping Tbl ground flax seeds in 1/4 cup of warm water
1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
4 tsp vegetable oil (not olive oil)

This recipe is not only wheat free but also corn free and soy free. This way, just about everyone, should be able to enjoy the pleasure of crepes.

Enjoy and share with others
Multiply and have many happy little crepes!"

-Kind Cooking, Chef Sophie