Quick and Easy Crepe Recipe

We love crepes with ice cream and this dish often shows up as our late night dessert. Our friends thought we made these with crepe pan and with some fancy crepe mix.  But guess what? We use regular pan and a simple recipe:

For 4 crepes

2 eggs

90g all purpose flour

30g sugar

250mL milk (I use skim milk but 2% is also fine. DO NOT use cream as the batter will be too thick)

Directions

1) Sieve the flour and sugar together

2) Add the milk and eggs in and mix well

Now here comes the answer to the biggest kitchen mystery for Asians. Like many Asians we wondered why we need an egg beater as we typically use chopsticks to beat the egg. Well to make crepes we found that the egg beater is the best tool to ensure all the dry ingredients dissolve completely and not sticking onto the tool (you will end up with crumbs sticking if you use a spoon or chopsticks).

If you don’t have an egg beater at home that’s also fine. Just sieve the batter through the strainer to make sure no crumbs in it.

3) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

4) After 30 minutes, heat the pan and brush it with a little bit of butter.

5) Reduce to heat to low to medium, use a soup scoop and pour 1 scoop of batter into the pan. Move the pan in circular motion to spread the batter.

6) Use a spatula and start scrape from the edge. When one side is done, you can life the crepe and flip to cook the other side. Then how “burn” you want the crepe to be is your preference.

Because we’re using a regular pan and we don’t have that little “T” shape thing to spread the batter evenly on the pan (btw I saw that sold at the St. Lawrence market), the edge is a bit thinner and might get crispy.  Just tuck the edge in when wrapping the crepe with ice cream/fruits/cream.

You can make the crepes ahead of time and put in the fridge. Just warm it with the pan when serving.

Now with chocolate drizzle and blueberries as garnish (or whatever toppings you like), a simple delicious dessert can be enjoyed at home in pyjamas! ^^ 

Vienna Sacher Torte Experience

We’re back!

After a 2-week vacation in Europe, we’re finally back. This time we spent most of our time in Austria, including Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck.

One of the items on my agenda for this trip was to try the Sacher Torte, a Viennese chocolate cake.  You can get Sacher Torte in almost any restaurant in Austria, but we’re interested in two main places – Demel and Hotel Sacher.

Sacher Torte was first “invented” in Vienna.  Throughout the 30s and the 50s there had been legal battles between Hotel Sacher and Demel for the name “Original Sacher Torte”.  At the end they settled and Hotel Sacher got to use the name “Original Sacher Torte” while Demel got the right to decorate the torte with a triangular seal that says “Eduard-Sacher-Tort”

You can find the details on the Sacher Torte on Wikipedia. But here we just want to share our tasting experience of the torte.  As with all food it’s a personal taste so our comments not necessarily mean one is better than the other.

Our first stop was Demel.  Its Vienna location is on the high end shopping street of Vienna, and you can see the Hofburg Palace from the patio.

Inside you can see the working area for the pastry chefs. We were there late afternoon so I guess they’re off already.

So this is the much anticipated Sacher Torte from Demel.  I-LOVE-IT.

I’m not a big fan of chocolate cake because the ones in North America are typically overly sweet. Yet the Sacher Torte is not supposed to be too sweet (Austrian taste I guess?).  Even though with the chocolate icing on top and apricot jam in the middle the sweetness is just right.

We went to Hotel Sacher after a concert.  You can see the big sign “Original Sacher Torte” there.

The four of us had a light meal at Café Sacher and then shared a dessert set for two. It included (from the bottom): pancake with plum jam filling (which is another common Austrian dessert and one of Empress Sissi’s favourite), Sacher Torte, raspberry and chocolate mousse cake, petite four.

For the Sacher Torte, I found Hotel Sacher’s a bit heavier than Demel’s.  Demel’s cake was fluffier and Hotel Sacher’s cake was denser. Reading Wikipedia it’s supposed to be a dense sponge cake but I personally like fluffier cake.  The chocolate icing of Hotel Sacher’s was also a bit heavier, making the torte taste a bit sweeter than Demel’s.  Of course I’m no foodie so I can’t tell whether these differences were caused by having them in different time of the day (afternoon vs. late night).  But if you like light fluffy cake Demel would be your choice.  But if you like more richness of chocolate, Hotel Sacher’s “Original Sacher Torte” would disappoint you.