Crepes!

Today, I made crepes.  I have been experimenting with different kinds of crepes and found this recipe for Gluten Free Crepes to be very very good.  It's made with rice flour, guar gum, milk, eggs, and butter.  The guar gum helps the rice flour stick together since it does not contain gluten but if you can't find it, you can leave it out.

For my crepes, the filling consisted of a lemony cream cheese, with added strawberries and bananas, and topped off with whipped cream.  I found this to be a good combination even though I tend to eat the strawberries with the cream by themselves before eating the filled crepes.  Perfect Sunday morning breakfast.  :)

Another way you can make these is with just the cream cheese filling and a raspberry coulis topping (I'll add the raspberry coulis recipe at the end of the post).

Without further ado, here are the recipes:

Gluten Free Crepes

1/3 cup rice flour
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk (I use 2% lowfat milk)
1 TBSP unsalted melted butter
1/4 tsp guar gum

1. Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth, about 1 minute.  Allow to rest for 10 minutes.
2. Preheat a non-stick skillet over medium heat.  Place enough batter in the pan to just cover the bottom.  You may need to swirl it around a bit. Dump out the excess batter back into the blender and let cook.
3. The crepes will start to bubble and lift away at the edges.  Once this happens, they should be slightly browned on the bottom and ready to turn.  
4. Turn and let brown slightly on the other side and slip into a warmed plate.  
5. Continue in this way until all the batter is used up.  You should have between 6 to 8 crepes.

Cream Cheese Filling

1 cup cottage cheese

1/2 cup softened cream cheese

3 - 6 TBSP powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)

zest of 1/2 lemon, grated finely

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Place all ingredients in a hand  held blender and blend until creamy.  
2. Once smooth, place in a small bowl.

Whipped Cream Topping

1/2 cup of heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 TBSP powdered sugar

With a hand-held powered whisk, blend all ingredients until smooth peaks form.  Once whipped, place in a small bowl.

Additional recipe for the raspberry coulis (not shown) is below:

Raspberry Coulis

450 g packet of frozen raspberries, thawed
7-8 TBSP white sugar
1/4 cup water
dash of salt
1 TBSP freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Add all ingredients to a heavy bottomed sauce pan and simmer over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.  Be careful not to boil the mix.  
2. Remove from heat and allow to cool.  
3. Once cooled, blend with a hand blended until smooth.  
4. Transfer to a mesh strainer over a larger bowl and push the residue with a spatula until there is nothing left in the strainer except the raspberry seeds.  
5. Discard the seeds and transfer the puree to the refrigerator and leave at least 2 hours before serving.  

This recipe makes plenty of sauce and you only need a little to drizzle over the top of your crepes.  It is very very tasty.

Which ever way you decide to make the crepes, they are very good. You may have enough to store for later.  If you do, store unassembled crepes with wax paper in-between each one and placed in a large zip lock bag.  They'll keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days at most.

If you decide to make these, please let me know which way you served them (with filling, bananas, strawberries, and whipped cream or just filling and raspberry coulis) and if you liked them as much as traditional crepes.  And of course...  Enjoy!

Raspberry Soufflé

My husband and I were recently watching Food Safari, the French edition, and saw them doing a Raspberry Soufflé.  Now, I've never had much luck with soufflé's but this chef (I know I know... he's a professional) made it look soooooo easy that I just HAD to try it.  So, I did...  Good things happened!  The soufflé was FANTASTIC... even though it was a little overdone on the top.  (Here's a link to the recipe.)

A couple of points about how I did this:

• I used frozen raspberries.
• My serving bowls were to large.  Next time, I'll use those little six ounce bowls.
• I used fan forced heat in my oven... don't do this.  It browns the top a little too fast.
• They didn't include a coulis recipe so I made my own...  I've added that at the end of this post.
• I didn't have freeze-dried raspberries so I used caster sugar instead.

Removing the raspberry seeds through a sieve  

Finished soufflé, fresh out of the oven...notice the overly
 browned tops.  It didn't subtract from the taste at all!

Finished (well almost) product complete with raspberries
and icing sugar.

My raspberry sauce, being poured into the soufflé.

About to take the first bite!

And the mess that I had to clean up afterward....
it was totally worth it!

As promised, here's my recipe for raspberry coulis:

• 1 450g package of frozen raspberries, thawed
• 5 TBSP sugar
• 1 TBSP fresh lemon juice

1. Place the raspberries and sugar in a saucepan and simmer over low heat until all sugar has dissolved.  If your mixture is overly dry, add a tablespoon or two of water.
2. Transfer the mixture into a blender, or if using a hand blender a tall glass, and puree until smooth.
3. Using a mesh strainer, strain the mix into a bowl.  Continue pushing the residue through the sieve until just seeds are left.  Discard seeds.
4. Transfer to a serving dish.  

BTW... I've used this recipe for a number of things.  Over fruit, ice cream, crepe's, etc... 

If you decide to make this, you will not be disappointed!