Strawberry Crepes

We've been celebrating strawberry season in a big way.  The berries have been tasty and plentiful.  My own strawberry bed is producing for the first time and I love picking them warm from the sun and popping them straight into my mouth.  No chemicals on these babies, so I can do that with good conscience.  There are not however, enough to make all the wonderful things that I want to make, so I've been supplementing them with berries from the local farms and some from down the mountain in SC.  They're all delicious!   

A dear friend of mine is getting married in August and I've been asked to help with the food at the reception by coming up with a strawberry crepe recipe.  This has been a tasty project that my family has enjoyed!  Unlike his wife, my husband doesn't usually get too excited about food.  But these crepes, well, they have turned his head.  They might be his new favorite dessert!

This recipe is made in three different steps.  First I made a simple strawberry sauce.

 Strawberry Sauce

1 quart of sliced strawberries

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

2 T. cornstarch

squirt of fresh lemon juice

I brought the sauce to a boil and then I took a potato masher and squished the berries, leaving plenty of them in larger pieces.  As soon as the sauce began to thicken slightly,  I turned it off and let it cool.  I didn't want to overcook, because I was going for a nice fresh sauce here, not jam.   

The second step was mixing up the crepe batter.  I don't think I've made crepes since high school French class, but if I had known how easy they are,  I would have tried them much sooner.  I dumped all the ingredients into the blender and mixed everything up in a few seconds.

Crepe Batter

2 eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

1 cup plain flour

4 T. powdered sugar

2 T. melted butter

I sprayed a nonstick skillet with coconut oil and poured about 1/4 cup of batter in the pan.  Quickly I turned the pan from side to side to completely cover the bottom. 

As soon as the batter is set, gently flip over the crepe and cook for about a minute.  This all goes really quickly, so have a cooling rack close by so you can remove one crepe and start the next one.  The recipe makes about ten crepes, depending on the size of your pan.  You want them to be lightly browned, like this.

Putting the crepes together was the fun part.  I took one of the cooled crepes and spread it out on a plate.  

Next came the creme filling.  Oh, I forgot to tell you about the creme filling.  I guess this would be step three.   This filling is a divine mixture of cream cheese, powdered sugar, heavy cream and vanilla.   Mix this all together in your mixer and have it ready to spread on the crepes.  This will keep for days in the refrigerator, if you want to make it ahead of time. 

Creme Filling

2 packages of cream cheese, softened to room temperature

1 cup of powdered sugar

1 cup of heavy whipping cream (unwhipped)

1 t. vanilla

Spread the crepe with the delicious cream filling and then place a few fresh strawberries on top of the cream.

Spoon the strawberry sauce over the fresh berries.

Wrap the crepe tightly with the seam on the bottom.

Make the second crepe, because you will definitely want two.

Sprinkle the tops with powdered sugar.  You could put more fresh berries and whipped cream on the top, but it's really not necessary.  They are perfect just like this.

I think these will be a hit at the wedding!

*Recipe adapted from this website.