Today is the French holiday La Chandaleur.  This is a Catholic feast day to commemorate the purification of Mary and the presentation of baby Jesus (or so my reading tells me).  It’s also known as “crêpe day.”

Now, I must admit that I have never made crêpes before now.  However, they are a perfect type of bread for making gluten-free.  They’re bound by eggs and don’t have to rise at all, so they’re ideal candidates for grain-switching.  To avoid any issues with gritty flour or anything along those lines, I decided to make my first experiments with cooked rice.  They turned out pretty well.  Here’s the recipe I used:

Gluten-Free Crêpes

I would recommend using a good blender for this.  I used my small blender because I wasn’t doing much batter at a time, but it left lumps of rice in the batter.  It was okay — they still worked and still tasted fine — but next time I would probably use the Vita-Mix.

I tried one of these for breakfast spread with cream cheese and jelly, and used the other to wrap a savory filling (chicken salad) at lunch.  Both worked well.  (Did I think to take a picture?  Of course not.  Sorry!)  These could have the potential to serve as a decent — and quick — substitute for wraps at lunchtime.

Variations

I haven’t had an opportunity yet to try any variations (or any “real” crêpe recipes, with actual flour), but my reading and my recipe files show a number of possibilities.  (If you like, the eggs can be increased, as well.)

• You can add a little sweetener if you’re going to use the crêpes for sweet fillings.
• You can add flavorings if you like.
• You can add cocoa.
• You can use diluted yogurt instead of sweet milk.

My notes say that crêpes can be frozen, kept warm in a 200-degree oven until serving, or turned into “cups.” (Press into muffin tins, brush with melted butter, and bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes.)  It’s worth noting, though, that all of those instructions are for flour-based crêpes, so if you try any of these with the above recipe, keep in mind that it’s something of an experiment.

I’ve seen recipes for crêpes filled with:

• lightly-sweetened ricotta or cottage cheese
• ricotta or cottage cheese with Italian seasonings
• white sauce with chicken and spinach or dried meat
• fruit
• pie filling
• breakfast sausages
• Nutella and dried banana

But they may be filled with just about anything edible you can think of.  (Or do a search for “crêpe filling” recipes.)  You can roll them, fold them, or simply top them and serve them with a fork.  I’m going to try them sometime with lunch meat and/or cheese folded into them like a sandwich.  The possibilities are practically endless!

If you experiment with any of these things, I would love to hear about it!