Friday, April 9, 2010

Vegan Buckwheat Crȇpes with Strawberry Coulis

Crȇpe is a type of thin pancake belonging to French cuisine and usually made from flour,eggs, butter,milk and salt. The word is derived from the Latin 'crispa' meaining curled.The crepes can be served with a variety of fillings -sweet as well as savoury and generally belong to two categories -crêpes sucrées or the sweet ones with sugar in the batter or galettes or crêpes salées which do not have sugar and are traditionally made with the gluten free buckwheat flour.

I have just made basic crepes referencing the recipe of David Lebovitz who gives the authentic buckwheat crepe recipe in his restaurant as well the crepe recipe in 'Complete Vegan Kitchen' by Jannequin Bennett. The recipe in the book had around 1 tbsp of potato flour that acts as a binder as well since eggs are not used.I adapted mine from both.

Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour: 1/2 cup
Buckwheat Flour: 1/2 cup
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Potato Flour or Instant Potato flakes: 5 tsp

Soy Milk: 1-1and 1/4 cup
Water: 6 tbsp +
Vegetable Oil: 2 tbsp

Vegan Margarine/Shortening/oil/oil spray: for greasing the pan (optional)

Preparation:
In a big bowl,mix together the flours and salt.Add oil,6 tbsp of water and 1/2 cup of soy milk.Mix well removing lumps adding more soy milk as needed to obtain a smooth batter.I needed total 1 cup for this.

Chill the batter overnight or atleast 30 minutes.

Gluten free flours tend to give heavy end results or crepes in this case.Chilling the batter will allow the particles to swell absorbing the liquid and the resulting crepes will be lighter.So chilling for atleast 30 minutes is amust.Normally the crepes derive the structure from the gluten in the flour,milk,fat and the eggs added.Since these items are avoided/reduced here or replaced by their vegan counterparts we need to do something to the batter so that it will hold its shape while being cooked.This is the information that I have got while googling for vegan crepes and since the crepes came out quite nicely or just as they are supposed to be, I suppose they may be right.I chilled the batter for about 2 hours.

Take out the chilled batter and let it come to room temperature.Add more liquid if needed.The batter will be very thick or the consistency of thick cream.I had to add about 1-2 tbsp of additional water and 4 tbsp+ of soy milk to get the pouring consistency.

Heat a pancake pan,apply cooking spray to it or melt margaring/horteninh on it.As the fat sizzles,ladle spoonful around 2-4 tbsp of batter on it.Tilt the pan so that the batter spreads out in a circular fashion or you can even use a spatula to spread it like dosa.But tilt is the traditional way.

Cook the crepe till the edges start browning about 30-40 seconds and then flip on to the next side and cook it for another 20-30 seconds.
The stages from batter to plate is shown as ....


Serve warm with your choice of accompaniments.I served it with strawberry coulis.

Strawberry Coulis:
A Coulis is a strained sauce made from fruits or vegetables.I have adapted the simple recipe from here.

Strawberries: few hulled and chopped
Powdered Sugar: as per taste
Lemon Juice: a small squeeze

Blend together all the ingredients and strain it.Adjust the sweetness and optionally spice it with your choice of spices and serve.



The crepes are going to be a part of Priya's Pancake Event and both the coulis and crepes are on way to Its a Vegan World :French,an event by Vaishali and currently hosted by Graziana .

12 Comments:

anudivya said...

Hey CL, pancakes are wonderful... never used potato flakes, what are those?

Ann said...

Looks healthy and Im sure it tastes great too.

Priya Suresh said...

Fantastic crêpes, just love it..Thanks for sending CL..

Cham said...

Actually the salted version with buckwheat is originated/called "Britanny crepes version" only those people did, but now France serve both versions.
Looks perferct ur crepes.

dining tables said...

I love it! Healthy and nice tasting! Thanks for sharing this to us!

PJ said...

i always wanted to make buckwheat pancakes.. looks so delicious with strawberry sauce.

Soma said...

These look heavenly! I would love a long elaborate breakfast just like this.

Jayanthy Kumaran said...

HY CL,

First time here...wonderful collection of healthy recipes you have. Love to drool here often. Do drop in at my blog sometime.

Aparna Balasubramanian said...

Wouldn't mind starting my day with that. I have great faith in David Lebovitz's recipes.

Usha said...

Looks fantastic and with buckwheat healthy too !

Indhu said...

Buckwheat has been on my list of "to-try" grains for a looong time now... I will use this recipe to start it off... :)

Graziana said...

Thank you for sending your recipe to It's a Vegan World French

Thanks for visiting my Blog

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