The Breakfast Challenge – A Breakfast Homage to Crepes Suzette

I do draw the line at Cointreau for breakfast, and I like breakfast pancakes to be higher protein and lower fat and sugar than desserts. But with a bit of tweaking, Crepes Suzette work perfectly for a citrus season Breakfast Cereal Challenge recipe. They’re fast and easy, healthy and very delicious. We have a tree full of oranges at the moment, and this recipe uses a couple of them per serve, so they meet the criteria of being based on local in-season ingredients. I’m making these a couple of times a week at the moment, until the oranges run out.

The Recipe:

This is the recipe for a single adult serve. Multiply by the number of people.

Ideally you need a large, heavy based frypan for this. If you don’t have one, you can manage with a couple of smaller ones.

Start with the crepe batter.

All pancake batters work better if they get to sit for a few minutes, for the flour to soak up the moisture. I use a stick blender to blend (for each serve)

• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup of milk (semi skim or full cream)
• 2 dessertspoons of wholemeal plain flour

(For US readers, a dessertspoon equals two teaspoons, and wholemeal flour is wholewheat flour)

The Orange Sauce

While that is sitting, grate the rind and juice two medium oranges per person. (Much easier to grate the rind first)

• You need one good teaspoon of grated rind and a cup of orange juice per serve.
• Add a teaspoon of butter and
• a teaspoon of raw sugar per serve.

Cook the Crepes

Melt a little butter in a large heavy frypan. Pour in a little crepe batter and tilt the pan to spread it as thin as you can. You want to end up with a crepe about 15 cm (6 inches)  across.

As soon as it is set, flip it and cook the other side.  The crepes don’t need to be browned, just set.

Take the crepe out and put it on a plate and repeat for all the batter. You should end up with three crepes per serve.

Assembling

Pour the orange juice, rind, butter and sugar into the pan.  Cook for a couple of minutes to melt the butter and sugar, then put one crepe in.  Turn it to coat in the sauce, then fold it in quarters and push to the side of the pan.  Keeping the orange mixture at a gentle boil, add the next crepe, turn and coat, fold and put to the side.

Continue until you have all the crepes in quarters in the pan.  They should very nearly have soaked up all the sauce. You can spread the quartered crepes around the pan and flip them again to soak up the last of it, then serve onto warmed plates.

They really don’t need anything else, but if you like you can serve with some slices of orange for decoration.