A very special Passover breakfast or elegant Seder dessert: chocolate crepes made with teff flour!
When it comes to Passover desserts, my favorite flour is not the dreaded matzo cake meal, which makes everything dense and leaden. It’s teff flour. What’s teff? An ancient grain native to eastern Africa, teff is most familiar to Americans as the basis for injera, the spongy, slightly sour – because it’s fermented – pancake-like flatbread served at Ethiopian restaurants.
Whole teff grains make a delicious porridge. I use teff flour for baking.
Teff flour is easy to find at good grocery stores and is a nutritional powerhouse: ground from the whole grain, teff flour contains calcium, protein, vitamin C, fiber and iron. (Be sure to look for teff flour, not the whole grain teff pictured above when shopping.)
Teff is considered to be kosher for Passover — although if you are very strict about not eating kitniyot, it may be out of bounds for you. Teff flour has a fine texture and a nutty flavor that happens to taste delicious with chocolate. Kosher for Passover brownies? Chocolate cake? That don’t suck? All possible thanks to teff flour.
But teff flour is more than just a kosher-for-Passover wheat substitute. It adds a new layer of flavor and interest to baked goods, especially when paired with chocolate. Baked goods made with teff are so flavorful and have such a rich texture, you should not limit them to Passover or for serving gluten-free guests. (But isn’t it nice to have something so tasty for Passover and other gluten-free occasions?)
In the past, I have made chocolate cake and brownies with teff flour, so this year I wanted to try something different: crepes. What a treat it would be to have beautiful crepes for a special breakfast or an elegant dessert this Passover!
You can fill these chocolate-flavored crepes with anything you like from jam to whipped cream. I like to spread the still-warm crepe with butter and sugar for a simple, not-too-sweet-but-still-super-satisfying snack. But look what I did here: I doubled down on the chocolate flavor by filling the crepes with Nutella and serving them with fresh berries. What a show-stopping finale to any Passover meal!
Crepes can be delicate, but I promise you can make yours this picture-perfect. (Just accept that the first crepe will come out wonky though.) It helps to have a 10-inch, nonstick crepe pan — those are useful for making blintzes too — but a regular nonstick pan can work too. The key is to let the crepe batter rest in the fridge for at least two hours. Overnight is okay too, especially if you want to make these for breakfast.
What do you think? Would you serve teff flour crepes during Passover?
Ingredients
- 1 cup teff flour
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 2 eggs
- 3 TB sugar
- 2 TB cocoa powder
- 2 TB melted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (can be omitted if not kosher for Passover)
- Pinch salt
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Allow batter to rest in the refrigerator for at least two hours and up to overnight.
- To make the crepes, spray a 10-inch nonstick crepe pan with nonstick cooking spray and preheat over medium-high heat.
- Cut 11 squares of wax or parchment paper to place finished crepes on.
- Whisk the batter to recombine and add a splash of milk if it appears too thick.
- Pour 1/4 cup batter into the preheated crepe pan and immediately swirl batter around the pan for an even coating. (Be careful just to thinly coat the bottom of the pan or the crepes will not cook and will be too thick.)
- Cook crepe for one minute to one and a half minutes until top appears dry. Remove pan from heat and using the edge of a thin, flexible spatula, carefully loosen edges.
- Flip crepe onto wax or parchment paper.
- Return pan to heat and repeat with remaining batter, stacking finished crepes on top of one another with paper in between and cover with a towel.
- Serve warm with your preferred filling, folding filled crepes into quarters.
