Caramelized Pear Crepes
Start your morning off with a sweet, low calorie caramelized pear crepes breakfast recipe to pair with your cup of coffee or tea! This pear crepes recipe offers those ultra thin, fancy, French pancakes filled with caramelized pears spiced with baking spices. Serve with fresh whipped cream and you’ve got yourself a lovely breakfast that is great to make during the holiday season.
What’s the Difference Between Crepes and Pancakes
Many people love to call crepes thin pancakes but there are some differences between crepes and pancakes other than thickness. Pancakes are smaller and use a rising agent like baking powder to make them thicker and fluffier whereas crepes are wider and do not contain a rising agent. Also, crepes’ signature move is having a delicious filling such as this pear crepe filling in my pear crepe recipe while pancakes usually just have syrup or fruit topping. I love to make crepes as a cozy breakfast during winter and especially at the holidays.
The Origin Of Crepes
Crêpes have an interesting history that started with a happy accident like a lot of things we’ve come to know and love in life. It started in France with a woman cooking breakfast who accidentally dribbled some porridge onto a hot cooktop and a crêpe was born! The word crêpe comes from the old French word ‘crespe’ which is of latin decent meaning “curled” (and definitely not crispy) describing the way the edges curl when cooked. Obviously the recipe has developed more over time to be the thin, filled pancake we are all familiar with today.
Read more about its interesting history here!
Caramelized Pear Crepes Ingredients
- Pears: I prefer bartlett pears for this fruity bake, however you can use your favorite pear. This should be ever so slightly soft. The pears should be peeled, cored, and sliced into quarter-inch slices.
- Egg yolks: This recipe uses a couple egg yolks which you cannot buy separately at the grocery store like you can with egg whites. If you’re looking for something to do with those egg whites then check out my egg white heavy desserts.
Major Allergens Present: Dairy, eggs, gluten
Equipment Needed
This is one of my few recipes that does not require a mixer!
- Crepe pans: Used to make the crepes. Not essential as any pan except for a cast iron pan can work for this. Crepe pans definitely make it easier with how lightweight they are and their shorter edges.
- Stick blender (optional): Used to make the crepe batter. A stick blender makes whipping up the crepe batter much easier, however, a whisk will work just fine.
How to Make Crepes with Pears:
What are Caramelized Pear Crepes Made Out Of?
This pear crepes recipe is made with two basic components of crepes (shocking I know) and a pear crepe filling. Crepe batter is super simple with few staple ingredients like flour, eggs, milk, and butter. The pear crepe filling is made with bartlett pears, baking spices, and brown sugar for the caramelization. It’s such a good fruity bake to make during the winter time when in season produce is at a minimum.
Make the Crepe Batter (the night before):
This is as simple as just combining the ingredients ensuring no lumps. First, when adding in warm, melted butter to cold eggs and milk, make sure to slowly pour it in while constantly whisking/buzzing your stick blender. Otherwise, your butter will freeze up and won’t combine! Same idea with the flour; if you dump it in right away you’ll get lumps! So make sure to sprinkle that in slowly while whisking constantly. Give the batter a good strain to get out lumps and air bubbles.
Once you’ve made the batter, leave it to sit overnight. This will remove the air bubbles naturally as air bubbles in the batter will create pore-like holes in your crêpes. You can strain it a second time for good measure, but definitely do not whisk it too much before cooking.
Make the Pear Crepe Filling
Pears are definitely in season during the winter for this pear filling for crepes! Since we’re using a lot of pears, you will need to caramelize in two batches in your biggest pan on the stovetop. Peel, slice in half, core, and slice in quarter-inch slices. You’ll cook one side in butter until it starts to browning before flipping and adding the sugar and spices. The sugar will melt, start to caramelize, and cook the pears the rest of the way. You want them to still have a slight bite. Once ready, deglaze with the lemon juice and vanilla and set aside until needed.
Cook the Crepes
Cooking crepes can be daunting for anyone the first few times, but practice makes perfect! Ensure your station is set up with pan sprayed crepe pans. Set the heat to medium and wait until they’re hot. Pour the crepe batter into the middle of the pan and immediately start to swirl around thinly coating the entire pan. Once the edges start to turn brown and release from the pan, flip over. I prefer to use my hands but you can use a spatula or flick of the wrist. Cook for an additional minute or two and rinse and repeat.
Fill With the Pear Crepe Filling and Serve
Time to fill the crepes with pears. I prefer to fill into a triangle pouch by placing the filling in a quarter and folding over in half twice, but you can fill in a semi circle or a little parcel. Serve with a little whipped cream, honey, or powdered sugar especially on a holiday morning.
Help Making Caramelized Pear Crepes:
What’s the Secret to Great Crepes?
- The key to success is making sure your station is set up for success! Have your pans, a spatula for flipping, a plate for the finished crepes, your crepe batter and ladle all within arms length.
- You want your pans on medium heat so you get nice browning without getting them crispy or cooking too fast. I also suggest spraying your pans with pan spray the first time and about halfway through.
- The amount of batter you will need will depend on how big your pans are. Do a trial run or two to get a good eyeball for how much batter you will need per crepe.
- When you pour the batter into the pan you want to immediately start rotating your wrist and pan because once it hits the pan it will start cooking. Rotate the pan evenly so you evenly disperse the batter throughout the entire pan. Less is more as you can always add more batter if you have holes or missing sections.
- You will know it is time to flip when the edges start to turn brown, curl, and release a little bit from the pan. To flip I will use a small offset to release the crepe’s edges from the pan then use my hands or a flippy trick of the pan to flip. You do have to be quick or else they will tear. I do find that using tools to help with the flipping hurts more than helps.
Enhancing This Caramelized Pear Crepes Recipe:
- Another pear filling for crepes can include honey! Replace half the brown sugar with honey and drizzle some when serving.
- Use apples instead of pears to make this more of a fall bake.
- Make these savory pear crepes by removing the caramelizing part and adding in some thyme and goat cheese.
How to Store and Freeze Caramelized Pear Crepes…
- Store the crepe batter in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 6 days. Do not freeze.
- Store the caramelized pears in an airtight container at room temperature overnight only. If you plan on making it well in advanced, store in the fridge for up to 4 days, and pull from the fridge the night before use.
- Store crepes at room temperature covered for up to 4 days and filled crepes covered in the fridge for 3 days.
Troubleshooting Caramelized Pear Crepes:
- My crêpes are tearing when I fill them! Two potential issues: (1) You used too much batter or too much filling. When the crepes are too thick they split when folded over. When you use too much filling you can’t fold it over properly and will also result in splitting. Use less batter or pile on your filling a little less. (2) Your temperature is too high. If you cook your crepes too long on a too high temperature they will get crispy and split when folding. Reduce your temperature to medium or medium low, and don’t allow the pan to get too hot before ladling the batter.
- My crêpes have lots of little holes/bubbles! Too much aeration when making the batter. This batter should be air bubble free when making. While it’s impossible to never have any air bubbles, especially when whisking is involved, you can still take actions to remove and prevent more air bubbles from forming. Allow the batter to sit over night so those air bubbles will disappear. Make sure to strain the batter before using and don’t whisk it. Also, do not sift the flour.
Something else going wrong? Reach out and we will troubleshoot together!
Caramelized Pear Crepes
Equipment
- Crepe pans
- Stick blender Optional
Ingredients
Crepe Batter
- 226 g Whole milk
- 2 ea Egg yolks
- 2 ea Whole eggs
- ½ tsp Kosher salt
- ½ tsp Vanilla extract
- ½ stick Butter, unsalted melted
- 100 g All purpose flour
Caramelized Pear Filling
- 6 ea Bartlett pears Or any pear you prefer. Peeled, cut in half, cored, and sliced in ¼-inch slices
- 8 Tbs Light brown sugar
- 1 tsp Cinnamon, ground
- ½ tsp Cardamom, ground
- ½ tsp Cloves, ground
- ½ stick Butter, unsalted
- 2 Tbs Vanilla extract
- 1 ea Lemon juice
Instructions
To prepare the crepe batter
- Whisk or stick blend together the milk, egg yolks, eggs, salt, and vanilla until combined.
- While whisking or stick blending slowly pour in the melted butter and mix until combined.
- While whisking or stick blending, slowly sprinkle in the flour and mix until combined ensuring no lumps.
- Pass through a strainer and allow to sit overnight. Strain again before cooking and do not use a whisk to mix.
To prepare the caramelized pear filling
- You will need to do this in 2 batches with your largest pan.
- Prepare your pears if you have not already done so: peeled, cut in half, cored, and sliced into ¼-inch slices.
- Combine the sugar and set aside. Keep in mind you will be using this for two batches.
- With your largest pan, set the heat to medium and add in half the butter. Once the butter has melted, add in as many pears that can fit. Allow to cook for about 3-4 minutes or until the bottoms start to turn brown.
- Flip the pears over and add half the sugar spice mixture. Swirl the pan around until the sugar melts and coats the pears. Cook for an additional 6-8 minutes or until the pears soften. Add half the vanilla and lemon juice and swirl around until it's evenly mixed in.
- Remove everything from the pan into a container and repeat for batch 2. Set aside pears until needed.
To prepare the crepes and fill
- Place your crepe pans on your stove and turn the heat to medium. Spray with pan spray.
- Once the pan is hot, start pouring the batter on the pan and start rotating to evenly coat the pan in a thin layer of batter. Allow to cook until the edges release from the pan and turn brown.
- Carefully flip over and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes and transfer to a plate.
- Once all the crepes are cooked, fill one at a time. Spoon a few slices of the crepes onto one quarter of the crepe. Fold in half then in half again to create a triangle.
- Serve warm topped with powered sugar or cinnamon and whipped cream.
Nutrition
I have always shied away from making crepes because they just looked a little too technical for my skills, but I was wrong! This recipe made it so easy for me and I was shocked at how fast I picked up making them. Will definitely be enjoying this recipe often, the pears are to die for!
Love making crepes and this pear filling was where it’s at!