Will It Press - Crêpes (Galettes)

Taking the David Lebovitz crêpe (technically galette with the inclusion of buckwheat?) recipe into the office, I thought I'd try it as my next sandwich press challenge, as they're already flat, so what could go wrong?

My usual attempt to avoid making the sandwich press dirty holds, and I tried covering it with aluminium foil.

I melted some butter on the foil, and spread it out with a paper towel.

Then I put the batter on the grill and closed the lid. It immediately started hissing, and steam came out the sides, but no smoke, which was a good sign given my last workplace cooking disaster! After about a minute (it was hard to tell how cooked it was with the lid down), I braved a peek and my heart immediately broke.

I guess it was cooked, but there were holes everywhere, and it was too crunchy to actually fold. I made the mistake of inviting some of my early-starting co-workers to join me, and so they were starting to get hungry and I gave up on more experiments with the lid down.

Next I tried the "regular" cook on one side and then flip method.

It didn't brown very well, and started to stick to the foil (having too much butter just made them really oily).

Finally, my co-workers convinced me to abandon the foil idea, and cook directly on the grill itself.

I am so sorry to everyone who used the grill after me, but at least MrBrioche did a great job cleaning it. It actually cooked quite well. I ended up buying a wooden crêpe spreader, which helped me spread the batter out. They ended up amazingly thin, though they were a bit too thin for my liking.

Lastly, I tried without the foil, and pressing the lid down. I didn't get a chance to take a photo of the crêpe on the grill, but it cooked really quickly. And having the lid down meant that both sides cooked at the same time, it was pretty much done as soon as I lifted the lid. They ended up much softer, almost like a thin pancake, which made them much easier to roll up. It was this type that ended up in today's photo-of-the-day, which I ended up giving to one of the testers on my team who said she loves crêpes.

I actually think this one was a success - though I think it worked well because the grill was non-stick and I stopped using foil. Unfortunately, the grill doesn't seem to get hot enough to brown the crêpes very well - or maybe it was starting to cool down as I had been cooking on it for about an hour, seeing as the first few crêpes had patches of brown.

Having them cooked in a pan made it easier to get a nice round shape, as well as a thicker crêpe, but in a pinch, the sandwich press will do! All of my co-workers thought they tasted great.