Mango Nutella Crêpes
Once I conquered my fear of making crepes and realized I could quite easily make these at home rather than reserving them as a treat best left to the hands of someone more experienced, they found their way into my weekend breakfast repertoire. Pancakes, waffles, bagels, and omelettes are all great Saturday morning breakfast food, but there’s no reason not to include some delicious Mango Nutella Crêpes in your routine as well.
After having made my first batch of crêpes, I still had a ton of nutella in the pantry, and nutella just screams crêpes to me (and in unison, my belly was also screaming crêpes, so it was decided). So while local strawberries have come and gone, it was onto another favorite fruit that has been looking pretty darn good on the store shelves these days: mangoes! Yes, this isn’t tremendously different from the prior crêpes, but can you ever have too many? 
This was a delicious way to start the day. I’d realized that while I’ve done many things with mangos, I’ve never had a mango and chocolate on the same plate, which seems kind of strange in retrospect. The bright, citrusy, distinct taste of mango combined with the silky smooth, creamy, hazelnutty taste of Nutella was (here’s a big surprise) absolutely wonderful…although I’d wonder if there’s anything that isn’t made better with Nutella. If you’ve never heard of or tried Nutella before, its a spread (with a texture like smooth peanut butter) composed of chocolate and hazelnut. Yes, yum.
Packed in some light, freshly made, buttery, crisp crêpes, this was delicious. If you’ve never made crepes before, I would highly recommend you read my prior post about crêpes for detail about technique. Its not hard to do, but its the little things that make life a lot easier and will have you banging out a crêpe a minute, which is something when you’re groggy in the morning and you just want to drown in your cup of coffee already. This is also my entry for this month’s Weekend Breakfast Blogging, hosted by Arundati, where the theme is mango.
- Crêpe batter (this will yield about 12-15 crêpes)
- 2 cups milk
- 1 cup flour
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- Orange zest (I used just a little, not even the zest of a quarter of an orange)
- 4 eggs
- 5 Tbsp melted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 jar Nutella
- 2-3 mangoes (a good sized mango should fill roughly 6 crêpes)
- plenty of butter (~1/2 stick for greasing pan between each crepe)
Begin by making the crêpe batter at least an hour before you intend to use it. I just make it the night before and let it sit in the fridge (you can do this up to 2 days ahead). You absolutely cannot and should not make it and start cooking right away or I promise that you will have disappointing crêpes.
Making the batter is a simple 5 minute job. In a blender or food processor, mix all of the batter ingredients except for the flour and butter until homogenous. Then, melt the butter and blend that in, lastly, blending in the flour until totally smooth. The result should look like cream. Store this in a bowl, put on some plastic wrap, and let it rest in the fridge.
On the morning of, peel, pit, and slice up the mangoes. I cut the strips you see above into thirds since you want something bite-sized in the crêpes for easy eating later.
Also, pop open your can of Nutella and uh, “verify that its still good” with a finger-sized sample. Mmmm, yup, still good.
Now warm up your pan (I use a 7 inch skillet, the perfect size for crêpes if you don’t have more specialized equipment) to about medium/medium-high heat, giving it a few minutes to ensure it reaches a steady temperature. Melt down a knob of butter and swirl it around to coat the surface of the pan.
Then, scoop in 1/3 cup of the crêpe batter and very quickly tilt the pan to and fro so that the batter sheets over the entire bottom of the pan within the first second or two of being in the pan as it will cook rather quickly.
Once about 30 seconds have passed, give the pan a good shake to verify that the crêpe can move and isn’t goopy or stuck to the pan. Very carefully and confidently, get a spatula underneath and flip it over (or use two spatulas, fold in half, flip, and unfold–practice and you’ll find the technique that is most reliable for you. Expect a failed crêpe or two, but don’t give up on them if things go south–practice from start to finish), ensuring no folds, taking care to spread it out thinly in the pan again.
Now move quickly, since you have only another 30 seconds or so before the crêpe is done! Scoop on some Nutella, spread it out (carefully–its kind of thick relative to the crêpe, so do your best not to tear the crêpe!), and pile on a small handful of the sliced mango. In the prior batch of crêpes I made, I spread Nutella over the entire surface, but in this batch, I only spread it in one quadrant. The fruit always only stays in one quadrant.
Either way is delicious, but just be forewarned that a full-crêpe amount of Nutella will yield a “heavier” crêpe (figure 2 per person, whereas a quarter amount makes 3 per person more likely. Its a good way to make the batter go further if you need to and nobody will complain about having extra Nutella!).
Once the Nutella and the mango is applied and 30 seconds are up, fold half of the crêpe over the filling and then fold in half again, always bringing the “emptier” half over the mango-filled portion. Get this out of the pan and serve immediately. Very quickly wipe the inside of your pan clean with a paper towel to get any leftover batter or junk out of the pan so you have a clean slate for the next one, and then another knob of butter goes in and you get back to work. If you have a willing assistant, you could probably get a few pans going and you could really bang this out very quickly, but that seems like it would be asking for trouble. I do one at a time, but really, about a minute per crêpe is pretty fast work, so I’m not complaining.
I garnished with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar, shelled pistachios (they go so great with mango if you didn’t know), some slices of mango (as a reminder that it what you’re about to eat!), and a few very fresh, local blueberries.
Enjoy!
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