We had them almost every day growing up," recalls master patissier Eric Lanlard. "You'd go to the supermarket or creperie, get a dozen crêpes à emporter [pancakes to go], spread butter on them, roll them up and dunk them in hot chocolate."
This year, Shrove Tuesday, our Pancake Day, falls on 4 March. But for the French it has already passed: there, it is celebrated on 2 February, the feast of Candlemas, or La Chandeleur. Lanlard was born and raised in Brittany, France's crepe-eating heartland. From a very early age he wanted to be a pastry chef – "It was the weekly trip to the local patisserie that attracted me to it. I loved the whole concept," he says. "How glamorous the shop was, how beautiful the cakes."
He served his apprenticeship at the elegant patisserie his family visited on special occasions, did his national service as a naval chef (a highpoint was cooking baked alaska for President Mitterrand aboard the cruiser Jeanne d'Arc) and moved to London in 1989 to work for the Roux brothers. Since 2005, Lanlard has been running Cake Boy, a patisserie and cooking school in Wandsworth, south-west London and is best known for his Baking Mad cookery show on Channel 4. But he still speaks with authority on the everyday treat he enjoyed as a child.
He tells me his classic recipe below is foolproof, but there's a small caveat. When it comes to the all-important flipping stage, Lanlard tends to lose his nerve: he uses a palette knife instead, thereby forfeiting his chance to make a wish when the airborne pancake is caught in the pan.
Pancakes
plain flour 110g
salt a pinch
eggs 2
vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract) 2tsp
dark rum 2tsp (optional)
full-fat milk 200ml
water 75ml
unsalted butter 30g (and a bit extra for greasing)
Make the batter
Sieve the flour and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the middle using a spatula. Break the eggs into a small bowl and beat them using a small whisk or fork, then add the vanilla paste (or extract) and the rum. In Brittany we like to add rum to everything – people in the navy used to bring it back from the French Caribbean – but it's optional here. Pour the egg mixture into the well and gradually combine the ingredients with a whisk. Once they are combined, mix the milk and water and add it, little by little, until you get a smooth batter – it's important not to do this all at once or you'll get lumps.
The beurre noisette
In a small saucepan, melt the butter to the noisette stage. You'll be able to smell it straight away – a distinctive nutty aroma – but be careful not to burn the butter: when you see little specks of brown appearing, take it off the heat. Whisk the liquid into the pancake batter: this will bring extra flavour to the crepe.
Cook the pancake
You'll need a shallow, medium-sized frying pan, non-stick if possible. Grease the pan with the extra butter (or oil) and put it on a high heat. Once the pan is really hot, reduce the heat to medium and add the pancake mix using a ladle – about 2tbsp of batter per crepe.
Swivel the pan to spread the mixture evenly around and cook it for about a minute. As it cooks, gently lift the edges with a small palette knife until you can feel it's completely detached from the pan. You can turn the pancake over with the palette knife. But if you're brave enough, use a bit of wrist action and flip it.
A golden finish
Cook it for another minute until it has a nice golden colour (I hate anaemic crepes). Stack the cooked pancakes on a plate, putting a small sheet of greaseproof paper between each one so they don't stick together. If you're not going to serve them straight away, cover with a clean tea towel to keep warm. Before serving, reheat the pancakes for a minute in a greased frying pan.
Fillings
Serve with a dusting of golden caster sugar on top and a squeeze of lemon, or with a chocolate spread. As a kid, I sometimes had them with salted butter melted over the top. This recipe (minus the vanilla and rum) can also be used to make savoury crepes, with ham and cheese, mushroom, or andouille sausage, but for savoury options I would prefer to use wholemeal flour or buckwheat.
