Japanese Crepes

by Linda Heller
(Confluence, Ky)

Greetings Crepe Fans,

Japanese style crepes taste sooo... good. They melt in your mouth but are crunchy also and I love the cones. The recipe seems to be a secret I can't find it anywhere. I also cannot find the wrappings. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

Comments for Japanese Crepes

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Sep 13, 2010
 A second option for crisp Japanese Crepes
by: Kroocrew

The Chinese have been using a mixture of innocuous alkaline salts for eons. Called Kansui.
The use of Kansui is straight forward. 5 grams (approximately 1/5 oz) is mixed with 500 grams (approximately 1 lb) of batter flour.

Kansui may be purchased from some Chinese food suppliers.

You can make Kansui by mixing three salts.
Your local Pharmacist maybe able to help you with the mixing of this. You would only need a couple of ounces to keep you going for a while.

in general reading I've come across references to various regional foods and their uniqueness due to local water. This is almost certainly due to lime levels in the water.

regards,
Sep 13, 2010
 Chasing the Japanese Crepe
by: Kroocrew

Hi Linda and all,

It is a mystery that's for sure.

talking to the crepe lady on the weekend was a bit difficult as she was intimidated by a foreigner asking questions and her uncertainty of me understanding (rightly so).

The closes I came to the crisp factor was by asking if addition of lime water to the batter was an ingredient. She acknowledged that. (Direct questions are fraught with all sorts of problems the issue being that it's not polite for them to give a negative answer. So a direct question is likely to evoke an affirmative response!)

I have a suggestion and this is based on another recipe with the addition of lime water to the batter. I suggest that you try this and see how it goes?? !!

Here's a recipe outline:
For 2 cups of flour add 3/4 cup lime water.

1cup of water
1 Tbsp of lime paste
Stir and allow the crystlas to sediment out.
Tip off the clear upper liquid and use this for the batter.

lime paste or lime water is used extensively and I suspect that this trick came either from China or from Portugal

The lime paste can be bought at Asian food suppliers including an online supplier
http://importfood.com/lime_paste.html
(I have a great respect for this company and unhesitatingly recommend them)

If this works please let us know

Kind regards
Sep 03, 2010
 Japanese style crepes
by: Anonymous

Thank you for your help. It does seem to be a secret. I bought the big Krampouz griddle, gas fired and the only way I can get the crunchy is with the sugar added but then it is to sweet for fillings. It is like a sugar cone. They are still to limp to roll into big tall cone otherwise. I tried spreading the batter with the wooden paddle yesterday it was really funny. I really do not have the hang of that. Now you know with the griddle and all how bad I want to reproduce these crepes. Please help me find the recipe. Linda
Sep 01, 2010
 Japanese Crepes.
by: Kroocrew

Hi Ashley and all,

Japanese crepes are seen all over South East Asia at least as a confection, often on street barrows fired with gas stoves and generally surrounded by children. In the soi I live the Japanese crepe maker comes on Saturdays and a census of children and sweet-tooths can be reliably taken. As Ashley mentioned they're generally cooked on a fixed pan, the cooking top, if you like and often a paddle is used to spread the batter in a circular raking pattern.
A little butter or ghee is used as the cooking fat but there is another aspect to the batter and that's the addition of alkaline salts of one sort or another. The Chinese use a mixture called Kansui, the Thai use lime water (as in slaked lime). I also think that there are European traditions of thin crusts using this principle possibly Portuguese(?). The alkaline salts make the batter more of a crispy biscuit (English vocab) but I don't know the chemistry. The use of butter alone doesn't bring the crepe to a completely crispy outcome as can be seen with the ultra-thin Malaysian style crepes as in Murtabak etcetera.

The holders I see are generally made of paper folded into a cone and flattened. The pointed end is cut-off. The crepe is filled with all kinds of pink, blue and primrose too sweet bits plus gooey chocolate and berry jams, Ovaltine powder and sweetened condensed milk. They're folded in half then folded again so that they now appear as a quarter cone segment and some are pushed flat, depending on the filling. This then is inserted into the flattened paper cone .
Aug 29, 2010
 Humm....
by: Ashley Memory

Hi Linda! Thanks for the great question. I have never seen a recipe for Japanese crepes, so I encourage others who have to please share!

I will say that through the course of research, I have read a few blog postings about Japanese crepes and it appears that butter is what makes them crispy. Not just in the batter, but by coating your pan with a generous smear of butter, the crepe will actually "fry" a little bit, which makes them crispier than the French type. And also, Japanese-style crepes are MUCH larger than homemade crepes (maybe as much as 15-20 inches across) because they are made on a fixed crepe pan. This larger size gives them more bulk, which allows them to be rolled up several times and and carried out in a roll of parchment paper or holder.

Check out this posting below for more information http://www.alphabetcityblog.com/2007/10/japanese-crepes-full-story-and-how-to.html

Kroocrew, our friend from Edibly Asian is very knowledgable about Asian traditions and might have more background on the holder and specific recipes.

Stay posted and we'll see what else we can discover about Japanese crepes!

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