Tag Archives: crepes

Fun Friday: Dairy-free cream cheese filling for crepes

11 Jan

This was a great new option for our crepe fillings!

TGIF! It’s Friday and it was our first full week back to school. For me personally, it wasn’t a bad week, but for the kids, it was exhausting to be full-on, back at it again after the break.

For today’s Fun Friday post, I thought I’d share a cream cheese filling that I made for our New Year’s Day brunch here at home. We don’t entertain guests that morning, but we generally do a very special breakfast just for our own little family to celebrate the new year. This year we opted to do crepes. We usually put out a variety of fillings including eggs/ham/cheese, bacon, berries, Nutella, peanut butter, bananas, and sometimes we’ll make a hot compote of apples and raisins. This year we also made a chocolate fondue on New Year’s Eve night while we waited for the ball to drop, so we were strategic when shopping for our dipping items for that treat so we’d have some fruits leftover for the next morning’s fillings.

This was a brand I’d already come to trust with a few other products, so that’s how I chose the cream cheese for my recipes.

When I made our Christmas cookies this year, I had one cookie I was particularly nervous about because it had a cream cheese filling and I had yet to try out a dairy-free option for cream cheese. When I bought my cookie-baking ingredients I had yet to do a “trial run” of these cookies, so I just purchased a cream cheese substitute that came from a brand whose products I already liked, and I crossed my fingers, hoping the filling would come out well, and it did. Everyone raved about these cookies, and I was just thrilled. And, relieved.

The cream cheese filling came out so well in fact, that I thought that I would try making a new filling for our crepes, since Nutella is not dairy-free and therefore, it eliminated one of the filling options for some of us.

I went back to the store and I picked up another package of the Daiya cream cheese spread, and I looked up a recipe online for a cream cheese filling for crepes. I assumed it would be pretty similar to the cookie filling, and it was. I found the recipe here, which included the recipe for the crepes themselves as well, and I used just the filling ingredients as my guide, not including berries, although I did have them ready to go:

For the Filling:
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

    When the time came, we had a lot of filling options for our crepes.

    That morning’s brunch was delicious, and I was so pleased with the filling. It worked out very well, and I’d definitely use it again. I am happy with the Daiya cream cheese substitute. They also have a flavored one that I would consider using in my recipes as well, which replaces a staple for one of our favorite chicken recipes over the years, and it’s a recipe I haven’t made in the past year or so.

    I hope you’ll give this cream cheese filling a try too. If you’re not in need of a cream cheese replacement, the recipe is one that ordinarily uses regular cream cheese, so you don’t need to do anything different.

    Have a wonderful weekend and I hope you too, have a Fun Friday!

    You can add a little whipped cream to the top of your crepes, dairy-free or not, and you’ll have quite the treat!

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It was like a crepe buffet!

28 Mar

Having apple cinnamon crepes for breakfast is like having apple pie for breakfast.

Is there such a thing as a crepe buffet? If not, then I think we invented one. If so, then I think we had one at our house too.

Two Sundays ago, Don asked me the fateful question: What do you want for breakfast today?

Now had he asked me, “What are we having for breakfast today,” maybe my answer would have been different, like “Scrambled Eggs” or “French Toast” or whatever we usually have for a typical breakfast on the weekends.

What I wanted, what I was craving, was Nutella Banana Crepes.

But on that day he asked me what I *wanted* for breakfast. Well what I wanted was crepes with bananas and Nutella in them. Yup, ever since National Nutella Week, when I saw them somewhere on some yummy food blog out there, I have been craving that very item. So when he asked, that was my answer.

“I want crepes with bananas and Nutella in them.”

His answer: “WHAT????”

We went back and forth for a bit, as in, “I’m not making that,” and “Fine, I’ll make it,” to “No, fine, I’ll make it.”

The kids were having fun garnishing their plates with whatever we had on hand that day.

It was settled. We were having crepes for breakfast. I was SO excited. The kids were excited too, when they heard.

Don found a recipe on Allrecipes.com for Basic Crepes that he followed to a “t” with one exception, which I’ll note later on when I post the recipe.

I cut up some apples to saute, as we decided to make a whole bunch of different kinds of crepes: the banana Nutella as requested, some apple cinnamon, some scrambled egg with ham, and some with just egg and cheese.

It was a regular ole’ crepe buffet at our house that morning!

There’s a commercial on TV now, I don’t even know what it’s for, come to think of it, but it has couples being asked “what’s the most romantic thing he’s done for you lately?” It’s a very funny commercial, and I thought of it that morning as Don handed me a crepe on a plate, just for me: a chocolate peanut butter crepe. There was just one, and I could’ve easily polished it off myself, but I shared.

Yes, I shared my peanut butter and chocolate chip crepe with my kids!

I know, that’s big for me, sharing my food.

I cut off some pieces for each of the girls and I ate what was left.

It.Was.Delicious.

And so, that is the story of how we very possibly invented, or not, a crepes buffet at our house that day. It was so successful that our kids now want to have that for breakfast EVERY Sunday.

Ooops.

Basic Crepes Recipe from AllRecipes.com

It was crazy-busy in Don's Kitchen that morning as he prepared all kinds of crepe varieties for us!

INGREDIENTS

(we doubled this recipe)

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and the eggs. Gradually add in the milk and water, stirring to combine. Add the salt and butter; beat until smooth. *This is where we changed the recipe. Mix all the wet ingredients together first and all the dry ingredients together and then combine them and whisk. The very first comment alludes to the same fact.
  2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.
  3. Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side. Serve hot.

    A crepe buffet...who would've thought?

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