Pumpkin Pie Crepes

These pumpkin pie crepes were a huge hit with my friends - perhaps because they were so excited to get something other than cupcakes out of my kitchen.  Interestingly, there was a gender divide in how people wanted the pumpkin pie crepes prepared.  The ladies wanted hot crepes with hot pumpkin pie filling while the gentlemen wanted hot crepes and cold pumpkin pie filling.  Then, there was my husband who is tired of pumpkin pie filling and simply wanted the hot crepes with Nutella (I can't blame him).  


The Pumpkin Pie Crepe Inspiration

When I posted about my pumpkin pie frosting, Cathy left the following comment:

I happened to have a lot of pumpkin pie frosting left over and, little did Cathy know, I was already planning to write about crepes (they come into play in my ghost cupcakes - coming soon).  I'm not sure that I would have thought to put the crepe and pumpkin pie together if it weren't for Cathy, so I owe her a HUGE thanks!


Getting Over My Fear of Crepes

As a kid, crepes were always my dad's thing - Mom made the pancakes, but Dad made the crepes.  I treated them as finger food and always ate them in the same order - first a plain one, then a cinnamon sugar one, then a banana one (I was a strange child).

In Jr. High, I had to make a dish for my French class and decided to make Dad's crepes.  It was a complete failure.  They wouldn't flip, and I remember having lots of messy (but tasty) little crepe bits everywhere.  I decided to leave the crepe making to Dad.

Finally, in my 30's, I decided to give crepe making another try.  I called my dad to get his recipe.  Since he has been making crepes for so long, his instructions contained no measurements (he just throws in ingredients until things look right).  Hmm... no wonder my Jr. High experiment failed.  A few months back, Jonathan and I went to a Serbian festival where they were making crepes (they call them Palacinke) and handing out recipe cards.  I decided to use the Serbian recipe.

Much to my surprise, I found that crepe making is actually much easier than pancake making.  Because crepes are so thin, they cook super fast and you spend less time standing by the stove and more time eating.  But, Dad, just because I now know how to make crepes, don't think you are off the crepe-making- hook.  Yours will still always be the best!

How to Make Crepes

Here's the Serbian crepe recipe (which is essentially the same as my dad's crepe recipe, but with measurements) in my own words.

• 5 eggs
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 C flour
• 1 1/2 C milk (I typically use 2%, but whatever you have on hand will work)
• 1 C water (I've used extra milk instead of the water and it just makes them a bit richer)
• Several tablespoons of butter (the Serbian recipe calls for lard, but I stuck with butter) for the skillet

1. In a large mixing bowl, mix all ingredients except butter until there are no lumps.
2. Heat a skillet on medium (the size of your skillet will be the size of your crepe, so just decide how big you want them).
3. When the skillet is warm, melt enough butter in it to coat the skillet.
4. Pour a ladle full of batter onto the buttered skillet and swirl the pan to spread the batter evenly over the entire skillet.
5. Cook untouched until bubbles form in the crepe (about 1 minute).
6. Flip the crepe and cook for another minute.
7. Turn out onto a plate.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 until all of your batter is used.  To speed things up, you can work two skillets at once.  It's not as hard as it sounds.

The Pumpkin Pie Crepe Filling

The filling for these crepes is pumpkin pie!  I used the same recipe and steps and I used when I made pumpkin pie frosting.  Check out my pumpkin pie frosting post for the details.