Crepe Suzette recipe

I love anything presented at the table, whether it’s a Caesar salad tossed in a large wooden bowl or a carbonara served in a giant wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano. What’s even more impressive is when a dish involves pyrotechnics, so if I see Crepes Suzette on a menu, I order them. Featuring crepes in a sauce of orange juice, butter, sugar and orange liqueur, crepes Suzette traditionally arrive at your table via cart, where a costumed waiter simmers the crepes in the sauce, adds a splash of liqueur, then ignites the whole thing. It’s a dessert that elicits “oohs” and “ahhs” from other diners, and is as delicious as it is impressive.

There are many stories about the supposed origins of crepes Suzette, but among the most popular is the one told by chef Henri Charpentier. He claims to have prepared this dessert for the first time while he was cooking for King Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, at the Café de Paris in Monte-Carlo in 1895. In his memoirs Life in HenriCharpentier recalls that cordials of liqueur accidentally caught fire while he was preparing the dish at the table for the royal. “I thought I was ruined,” he wrote. “I tasted it. It was, I thought, the most delicious melody of sweet flavors I had ever tasted…This accident of flame was precisely what was needed to bring all these different instruments into one harmony of taste.” According to Charpentier, the Prince of Wales had with him a guest named Suzette, after whom Charpentier chose to name the dessert, although other accounts of the dessert’s origins predating this one make his assertion, at best, questionable.

For example, in an 1892 issue of The Political and Literary Annalsa weekly, oeuf Suzette and crepes Suzette are mentioned with the assertion that both recipes can be attributed to the premiere of the operetta. Suzette’s journeywhich opened at the Théâtre de la Gaîté in Paris in January 1890. According to the magazine, the crepes were prepared with fresh butter, vanilla sugar, orange zest and champagne, with no mention of flambéing. Charpentier may not have had the original idea, but it’s possible he added his own touch with the accidental flame.

As sophisticated and intimidating as Crepes Suzette may seem, the dessert is actually remarkably easy to make at home. Like Kenji, I use a mixer to quickly whip up the pancake batter, then cook the pancakes in a nonstick pan (although you can also use a pancake pan, if you have one). As tempting as it is to make the sauce in the same pan used to make the crepes, flare-up can damage the nonstick coating. I recommend using a non-reactive pan like a stainless steel skillet to prepare the sauce and flambé it.

After I prepare the crepes, I fold them and set them aside so they are easier to slide into the sauce and then serve. The sauce itself is the star of the dish: To make it, I melt butter, then stir in freshly squeezed orange juice, salt, and a flavorful orange sugar that I make by quickly macerating orange zest with granulated sugar (more on that below). I bring the sauce to a boil, cook it until slightly thickened and reduced, then add the folded crepes, making sure to coat them evenly with the sauce. All that’s left to do is set it on fire, which is as cathartic and satisfying as it sounds.

Below, I explain the main techniques to help you make superb Crepes Suzette at home.

Is it necessary to let your crepe batter rest?

In culinary school, my French instructors insisted that it was absolutely necessary to let your crepe batter rest for at least an hour or, preferably, overnight, because they believed this would give the gluten a chance to rest. In his basic pancake recipe, Kenji noted that letting pancake batter sit did not produce more flavorful pancakes. However, he did not address the issue of texture. To see if rest made a difference, I prepared two batters. I made one batch of dough the day before, which rested for about 12 hours, and another just before baking.

Although Kenji is correct that resting overnight doesn’t do much for flavor, I found that resting actually produced more tender pancakes. The difference, however, is marginal enough that I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to rest your dough. Fresh batter still made delicious pancakes, they were just a little chewier. Although I included rest as an option, it is certainly not a requirement.

The Simple Upgrade for Tastier Crepes Suzette

Traditional crepe suzette recipes call for both orange zest and sugar. It makes sense to add zest to the sauce: It contains fragrant oils that convey much of the characteristic scent and flavor of an orange, enhancing the sauce’s overall orange character beyond what orange juice and liqueur can offer. Still, the sauce cooks quickly enough that simply adding zest to the sauce doesn’t take full advantage of all the flavor it can impart. By taking just a few extra minutes to rub the zest into the sugar, I am able to extract the powerful oils from the peel, giving the dessert an even more intense burst of citrus flavor.

Although orange zest does not usually appear in the pancake batter itself, it seemed like a wasted opportunity not to also include the orange-flavored macerated sugar in the pancakes. To see if it really made a difference, I made two batches of crepes suzette: one with macerated sugar, and one with sugar and orange zest added separately. Although both versions were delicious, the batch made with the macerated sugar had a much more pronounced citrus flavor than the batch made without the macerated sugar. It’s one of those small but impactful techniques that takes a classic recipe and makes it even better.

How to flambé safely and confidently

I like to flambé the traditional way: tilting the pan slightly so that the flame ignites the alcohol in the pan. But if that seems too intimidating or you’re not working on a gas flame, you can use a match, long-handled lighter, or kitchen torch to ignite the sauce. A word of caution: always use a measured amount of alcohol and never pour alcohol directly from the bottle into the pan. As Daniel discussed in his Cherry Jubilee recipe, the flames can jump, lighting up the entire bottle in your hand. And if you don’t feel like lighting the heat, simply add the alcohol and let the sauce simmer for several minutes until the alcohol has evaporated and the sauce has reduced.

October 2024