The healthy crepe

By Sari Huhtala

Who doesn’t love crepes? If you’ve shied away from indulging in crepes because they don’t jive with your healthy eating plan, you’ll appreciate this old Finnish crepe recipe, turned healthy with a few tweaks. Forget the brain drain and inflammation-causing white flour-based crepes, and give this recipe a whirl. You can dress them up with chia seed jam, made by mashing berries to bring out the juices and adding a bit of chia seeds to gel it up a bit, or just plain will do. My grandson loves to eat them plain, just rolled up. He usually gets a head start, eating them as I prepare them, which is a good thing. This way he’s not mimicking the adults around him who are drizzling maple syrup all over their crepes. Why train his tastebuds to crave sugar on his crepes?

Lätty  (Finnish crepes)

• 3 cups unsweetened, plain almond or cashew milk
• 3 eggs (vegan version idea below)
• 1 cup spelt flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Coconut oil/oil/butter for frying

Whisk the eggs and nut milk in a bowl. Add the flour and salt and mix well to make a smooth batter. If there is time, allow the batter to sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes or more. The batter will be quite runny.

Heat a skillet or cast iron pan on medium to medium high temperature, and add about 1 tsp of oil (I like to use coconut oil) or, to tone down the coconut taste, use half coconut oil and half butter. Do a small test crepe to make sure the pan is hot enough, by spooning a small amount of batter into pan. The key is to fully heat the pan before frying. It should immediately start to sizzle slightly, and edges will begin to brown when it is ready to be flipped. Re-oil the pan slightly between each crepe. Scoop and stack onto a plate until they are ready to be served. Store leftovers in fridge.

For a vegan version, instead of using eggs, add about 1 – 1 ½ tsp of baking soda to the nut milk, blend, then add flour and salt. I have not tried this version, however, my mother tells me whenever there were no eggs available, her mother would use baking soda as a substitute.

Sari Huhtala is the creator, publisher and editor of Alive and Fit Magazine. She has over 25 years experience in journalism, and is a mother of 3 adult children. She has spent over 20 years navigating a healthy path for her family, one health hack at a time, as a single mom feeding her kids healthy on a shoestring budget. She has over 15 years experience as a certified fitness specialist and personal trainer and over 10 years as a reiki practitioner. She has also studied shamanism, and holds wildcrafting foraging workshops.