Crepes: Classic or GREEN?

Green Crepes! Are you serious? Yes, I am. I got this idea from the book, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss which is such a classic children book but in this post, we are not eating GREEN EGGS but only GREEN CREPES!

Fortunately (to my family), I am not as crazy serving green crepes with Nutella and marshmallows! We are actually eating them as two separate crepes dishes...Green Crepes with Spinach and Ricotta and Classic Crepes with Banana and Nutella-mallow sauce.

Being a typical kid, my son loves his crepes with Nutella and marshmallows. I tried to convince him to eat the spinach and ricotta crepes but eventually, he likes to eat the plain green crepes on its own...but he didn't know that each green crepe contains 25g of spinach! I love being a sneaky mum! LOL

For the classic crepes, I've created a reduced fat version of choco-mallow sauce. I've used Nutella with 30% fat to replace milk chocolate which contains an average of 30–45 per cent fat. It seems that both Nutella and milk chocolate are quite similar in their fat content, but Nutella is chosen in this case because it can be easily mixed into warm milk instead of cream for making this sauce. Plus, it is nice to know that the marshmallows being part of the ingredients are fat free. On the other hand, everything in this is still high in sugar! Oh well, nothing is going to be fat free or sugar free in a delicious dessert...nevermind...just enjoy these crepes!

Classic Crepes with Banana and Nutella-mallow sauce

Good to know that these crepes are made with fat-reduced Nutella-mallow sauce.

Spinach and Ricotta Green Crepes

A closer view of the baked green crepes

The sneaky green crepes...

Here are the crepes recipes (with my modification in blue)

Classic Crepes
(from Australian GoodFood magazine Sep 2011 issue)

Make 12
1 cup (150g) plain flour
200ml milk
2 eggs
25g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra to grease

for green crepes: add 250g frozen spinach, thawed excess liquid removed, pureed

Sift flour and a pinch of salt into a bowl.

Make a well in centre. Whisk milk and 100ml water in a jug. Break eggs into well. Gradually add milk mixture, whisking constantly.

Whisk in melted butter until batter is smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and stand for 30 min.

Heat a medium crepe pan on medium. Grease with extra melted butter. Pour 2 tbsp of batter into pan and working quickly, tilt pan so batter completely coats base.

Cook 30-45 sec until golden underneath.

Using a palette knife, turn crepe and cook for another 30 sec, until golden and cooked.

Slide crepe onto a plate and cover with a piece of baking paper. Repeat with remaining batter, greasing pan with butter between batches to make the rest of the crepes.

Note:
Using this recipe, I made 6 large (20-22 cm diameter) classic crepes and 10 medium-sized (about 15 cm diameter) spinach crepes.

The spinach crepe batter is thicker than the classic one and is unable to spread as well as the classic batter when coating the pan with crepe batter.

Crepes with choc-mallow sauce
(from Taste.com.au)

Ingredients for choc-mallow sauce (to serve 6 crepes)
1/2 cup thickened cream (replaced with milk) 
125g milk chocolate, chopped (replaced with Nutella)
100g white marshmallows, chopped

Place cream (milk) and chocolate (Nutella) in a saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring with a metal spoon, for 3 minutes or until chocolate melts. Add marshmallows. Cook, stirring, until smooth. Serve crepes with sauce.

To assembly, spread 2-3 tbsp of choc-mallow sauce on each crepe, place sliced banana on each crepe and fold or roll them as the way you would like to serve.

Top the crepes with extra and generous amount of choc-mallow sauce, sliced banana and marshmallow. Serve.

Note: 2 medium sized banana is sufficient to serve 6 crepes.

Spinach & Ricotta Crepes
(from Taste.com.au)

Ingredients (serves 4) 

Tomato chutney that I've used

400g fresh ricotta (reduced to 200g)
250g pkt frozen spinach, thawed, excess liquid removed
400g pkt frozen crepes, thawed following packet directions (about 8 pieces of crepes)
310ml (1 1/4 cups) passata (tomato pasta sauce)
(replaced with 1/3 cup of tomato chutney for extra sweetness and flavours)

Preheat oven to 190°C (or 170°C fan forced) . Combine the ricotta and spinach in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

Divide the spinach mixture among the crepes. Fold in the ends and roll up (or fold into quarters) to enclose the filling.

Place, in a single layer, in a baking dish. Pour over the passata (or tomato chutney).

Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until heated through.

Happy "Crep-ing" and Baking
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