WiseArts

I was feeling ambitious this morning, so I decided to make something “fancy” for breakfast. I have been thinking about pannekoeken (Dutch pancakes) lately, and decided to attempt one of those!

I found the recipe at cooks.com:

I used an iron pan instead of a dutch oven. I was a little concerned because the batter seemed rather thin, but it baked up just fine. Light and fluffy. In addition to the apple slices, my pannekoeken had some frozen strawberries. It didn’t slide right out of the pan—not the way you’d think it should for having half a stick of butter—but it was coaxed out fairly easily with a spatula. I think I’ll try a different type of “grease” next time and see if that helps. Although, the butter does impart a nice crispness and flavor on the edges of the pancake…

I will definitely try making this again. Simple to make, and the options for fruity inclusions are limitless! I’m thinking bananas and carmel next time. Serve it with some whipped cream on top or a scoop of vanilla ice cream… yeah.

Today, of course, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. To help celebrate this exciting day, I made these chocolate *ship* muffins for my mateys at work. Originally, I had intended to draw skull and crossbones on each muffin with white icing, but that was a big fail. So instead, I made up these little jolly rogers (pirate flags!) to go on each muffin.

I found the design for the flag on Wikipedia in a vector SVG file. Working in Adobe Illustrator, I resized it down to an inch wide, and copied it so there were two set directly next to each other. Then, I just copied and pasted that design so I had enough for each muffin. After printing, I cut out the flag sets, put Tombo Mono Adhesive on the back, and folded them in half over a toothpick. mmm piratey

In more exciting news, my Computrainer arrived today!! It’s a totally nerdy indoor bike trainer. I was a little disgruntled that the box was simply left on my doorstep by UPS, no signature required. I’m thankful that we live in a nice, quiet neighborhood. I would hate for someone to make off with that expensive box. O_O yikes. So I got the thing assembled, and I’ve done a little test riding. It seems that the heart rate monitor is a little finicky, so I’ll fiddle with that tomorrow. I need to read the manuals, so I’m 100% familiar with the system’s capabilities. I’ll report in tomorrow night with more details!

I found a cookbook at the thrift store called Crepe Cookery by Mable Hoffman. This book has several different crepe batter recipes and hundreds of lovely things you can make using your crepes for any course of a meal. They’re not just for breakfast!

For dinner this evening, I made a batch of the “All Purpose Crepe Batter I” (pg. 12). Also from the thrift store, I happen to have a Perfect Pancake pan that used to be sold on TV. I got mine for $2.99! Since I’m terrible at flipping and turning things over without losing them to the floor or ripping them to shreds, I decided it would be great to try out Perfect Pancake on my crepes.

I made the batter exactly as specified in the book. When it was ready, I heated up Perfect Pancake. The first few crepes I made were too thick, which makes them mushy in the middle. Surprisingly little crepe batter is needed to make them just the right thickness. I used this mixing spoon — a level spoonful was just the right amount to put in the Perfect Pancake.

I swirled the batter around to coat the pan like the book suggested, and then let it sit until the edges started to brown.

Then, the fun part! FLIP!

Because the first half of Perfect Pancake has a curve to keep the batter in, I found that the crepes needed to get flattened a little after flipping to cook as evenly as possible.

I wasn’t counting, but I think I got about 30 crepes out of the batch. I made a pizza crepe to eat tonight, and I’m freezing the rest to use later. (I put them in plastic freezer bags separated with freezer paper. According to Crepe Cookery they store for up to 4 months in the freezer and can be reheated by microwave.) For my pizza crepe, I layered on: sauce, zucchini, fresh tomato, sliced “baby bella” mushrooms, fresh basil, turkey pepperoni, and feta and mozzarella cheese. I put it in the oven at 350 for about 12 minutes. The crepe stays soft in the middle, so you can’t pick it up like a regular slice. Folding it N.Y. style worked well.

If you want to get a copy of the book, used copies can be gotten very cheaply on Amazon and eBay. I recommend it. It contains more than you’d ever want to know about cooking with crepes!