Vegan Buckwheat Crepes

As you may have noticed, I’ve been digging on the crepes lately. So far I haven’t strayed from Mark Bittman’s recipe for Buckwheat Crepes, made with buckwheat flour, regular flour, eggs, milk and butter. They’re delicious, and not at all vegan. This isn’t a bad thing, and some might argue against tampering with a recipe that is fundamentally non-vegan. But at the same time, vegan food is “good to think”, and I like that. And cooking under the constraints of veganism lets me think outside of the box, try new ingredients, see old ingredients in a new light, and share food that everyone can feel good about.

So when we ran out of eggs and butter last week, I decided to give vegan crepes a whirl. There are loads of recipes for vegan crepes floating around the web, but there aren’t many that use buckwheat flour. The exception are the Veganomicon’s buckwheat crepes, which are pleasantly devoid of weird ingredients like margarine or egg replacer. Instead, these buckwheat crepes use chickpea flour and cornflour to bind the dough. Sounds weird, but check it out: these crepes are amazing!

These vegan buckwheat crepes look and cook just like “the real thing”. Here’s a side-by-side photo – can you tell the difference?

One of these things is not like the other

The crepe on the right is the vegan version. As you can see, there’s not a huge difference. My only complaint would be that they lack the subtle richness that butter adds to the non-vegan crepes, but I suspect this could be nicely dealt with by adding some ground cashews or coconut milk to the batter.

The next question is – what do you fill a vegan crepe with? I love sweet crepes, but I find they need to be balanced with something creamy, such as yogurt or cottage cheese. But what’s a vegan to do?

I’ve been experimenting with a tofu filling, inspired by Vegalicious’s blueberry blinis, made by blending tofu with tahini, lemon juice, sugar, and salt. I’m still tweaking the recipe, but the texture is nice and I couldn’t stop eating the stuff straight from the bowl with a spoon. It was great with this morning’s apple crepes with blackberry jam (pictured below, and also makes a good base for vegan blintzes (another great use for crepes, shown on the right).

Here are a few other ideas for vegan crepe fillings and toppings:

Filled with fruit or jam, then topped with soy yogurt, maple syrup, melted chocolate, or nuts
Filled with melted chocolate, then topped with berries
Filled with peanut butter, then topped with banana
Filled with cashew or any nut “cheese”, sweet or savory
Filled with scrambled tofu
Filled with sauteed veggies, then topped with any kind of gravy – mushroom, cashew, onion, etc.

Vegan Buckwheat Crepes

The chickpea flour may seem like a weird addition, but somehow it works. Add more soy milk to the batter if you like your crepes thinner.

1 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp soy milk
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
vegetable oil

Whisk together all of the ingredients Let the batter rest for at least an hour (I make the batter right before bed, then cook the crepes in the morning).
Lightly oil an 8- or 10-inch nonstick skillet and place over medium heat.
Pour a couple of tablespoons of batter into the skillet. Swirl it around so that it forms a thin layer on the bottom of the pan. (If the crepes aren’t thin enough, add a little more milk to the batter.)
When the top of the crepe is dry, after about a minute, flip and cook the other side for 15 to 30 seconds. (The crepes should brown only very slightly and not be at all crisp.)
Stack the crepes on a plate as you make them. You can keep them warm in a low oven while you make the remaining crepes. Or freeze the leftover crepes, separating each crepes with a piece of parchment paper.

Makes about 10 crepes. Per crepe: 56 Calories; 2.7g Protein; 1.1g Total Fat; 8.8g Total Carbohydrates; 28mg Cholesterol; 140mg Sodium; 1.8g Fiber.

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Mom

May 24th, 2009 at 2:30 am

These sound delicious… chick pea flour actually is very light and delicate, so perfect for crepes. Make these when you get here next…

Monica Shaw

May 24th, 2009 at 6:33 am

I will definitely make this… as long as we can get some of that amazing greek yogurt to go with it!

Arwen from Hoglet K

May 25th, 2009 at 11:35 am

I’ve read a few things lately about using tofu as a substitute in creamy things. I still haven’t tried it, but I like the idea of a low fat alternative to cream. I’m so used to savoury tofu, but I’ll have to give the sweetened tofu a go.

May 25th, 2009 at 1:25 pm

Arwen, there’s lots you can do with silken tofu. I used firm but silken tofu is much creamier. A quick search for “silken tofu cream” turned up Tofu Cream Cheese (for carrot cake!), Tofu Sour Cream, and Tofu Mousse. Lots of options!

Adam

October 6th, 2009 at 7:59 am

Hi,
After making great vegan crepes using another recipe, I’d like to master a vegan crepe that is also wheat/gluten-free. So I tried chickpea flour which tastes very bad, very unlike delicious crepes. Then I used a combo of chickpea flour and buckwheat flour which got a bit better. Any recommendations? What are Teff or Tapioca flour types and would any suggest applying them for crepes?

thx!
Adam

October 6th, 2009 at 8:07 pm

Yeah, chickpea flour, while good, is definitely not a crepe. Mark Bittman recommends Teff for crepes though I’ve never tried it. Here’s a recipe for a dairy/gluten/sugar-free teff crepe that is allegedly great with chocolate…

Teff crepes