Here is my take on gluten-free low-carb crepes. I developed this recipe from scratch, mainly because I wanted to satisfy my everlasting need for research and development — and of course to create as palatable result as possible.
Tips for making the crepes
For the best tasting and feeling (yes, the mouthfeel) crepes, be sure to use high-quality coconut flour. Gritty and flaky coconut flour produces gritty and flaky crepes, and powerful-tasting coconut flour produces dull-tasting crepes. You want to find coconut flour which has almost no odor and is fine, white and smooth, just like wheat flour.
You can sift the dry ingredients for the smoothest and guaranteed lump-free result.
In case you don’t find extra large eggs, you can use normal eggs. It shouldn’t make too much difference. You might want to reduce the amount of cream cheese by 1 oz (30 g), though.
Be sure to use nonstick griddle and an ample amount of butter to guarantee that the crepes will be easy to flip and to remove from the griddle.
Medium heat produces best results. Higher temperatures naturally burn the crepes easily, and with low temperatures you are just wasting your time.
So, let’s take a closer look at the process:
Take a small bowl and add there the coconut flour…
…erythritol crystals…
…and the whey protein.
Mix well…
…until well mixed.
Place the eggs…
…and the cream cheese in a large bowl.
Beat with an electric mixer until there are no lumps.
Add gradually the dry ingredient mixture, beating all the time.
Give it the final beat. Cover the batter and let it stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Heat a griddle over medium heat. I use 8-inch (20 cm) griddle. Add a generous amount (1–2 teaspoons) of butter to the hot griddle and let the butter melt completely.
When the butter is not foaming anymore, pour about 1/3 cup (80 ml) of the batter onto the griddle…
…or until the bottom of the griddle is very thinly covered by batter.
Cover the griddle and cook the crepe until the bottom is light brown and there is no fluid left on top.
Flip the crepe.
Cook until the bottom of the other side has got some color.
Ready!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup = 60 ml organic coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons erythritol crystals
- 2 tablespoons vanilla-flavored whey protein
- 6 organic free-range eggs
- 2 oz = 60 g unflavored, unsweetened full-fat cream cheese without food additives
Instructions
- Mix the coconut flour, erythritol and whey protein in a small bowl.
- Place the eggs and the cream cheese in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until there are no lumps of cream cheese.
- Add gradually the dry ingredient mixture, beating all the time while adding.
- Cover, and let the batter stand for 30 minutes at room temperature.
- Heat a nonstick griddle over medium heat. Add a generous amount (1–2 teaspoons) of butter to the hot griddle and let the butter melt completely.
- When the butter is not foaming anymore, pour about 1/3 cup (80 ml) of the batter onto the griddle, or until the bottom of the griddle is very thinly covered by batter.
- Cover the griddle and cook the crepe until the bottom is light brown and there is no fluid left on top.
- Flip over, and cook until the bottom of the other side has got some color.
- Repeat with remaining batter.
- Serve the crepes hot or warm.
Nutrition information | Protein | Fat | Net carbs | kcal |
In total: | 64.9 g | 58.8 g | 10.2 g | 833 kcal |
Per crepe if 6 crepes in total: | 10.8 g | 9.8 g | 1.7 g | 139 kcal |
My crepe experiments
Just very shortly about my crepe experiments and some lessons learnt.
Like said, I was missing a proper recipe for gluten-free low-carb crepes. I had tried some recipes in the past, but not very successfully. Usually the problem was that the crepes were not holding too well together. You just couldn’t get very thin crepes, they were tearing in pieces when handling them.
Another problem was that in some recipes the ingredients were low-carb, but not gluten-free or otherwise healthy.
Moreover, I wanted to do experiments myself to see if I would be able to create the ultimate recipe for gluten-free low-carb crepes.
To achieve the smoothest result, I wanted to use fine-textured ingredients. Almond flour would have been too coarse, so I decided to try how coconut flour works.
With coconut flour I naturally needed eggs. I was pondering other ingredients and wanted to give a try to whey protein and cream cheese. Then just some erythritol as sweetener, since it helps the crepes hold better together than for example stevia.
I noticed that without cream cheese the result was tough and chewy, so cream cheese gives certain softness and slight fluffiness.
However, too much cream cheese made the crepes too fragile and they didn’t hold that well together. Too much whey protein made the crepes hard and the edges were curling in a nasty way.
It was all about the balance and the optimal ratios between different ingredients.
Tips for variation
For even more prominent vanilla flavor, you can add 1/2 teaspoons organic vanilla extract to the batter.
If you would like to make savory crepes, just replace the vanilla-flavored whey protein with unflavored whey protein, and omit the erythritol. You can add a pinch of salt or your favorite herbs to the batter.
You can use these crepes just like you would use normal wheat flour based crepes. Personally, I prefer to serve the crepes either topped with mixture of organic cinnamon and erythritol crystals…
…or with fresh strawberries and whipped cream — and topped with Sugar-Free Hot Fudge Sauce.
I even made a cake for Mother’s Day using crepes and Hot Fudge Sauce.
By the way, the Hot Fudge Sauce will be my next week’s recipe, stay tuned if you want to get a recipe which truly pampers your taste buds… ooh la la!
UPDATE: Here is the link to the Sugar-Free Hot Fudge recipe!
Ivana
I was wondering if there was an alternative to the coconut flour?
elviira
Hi Ivana, unfortunately not in this recipe. This recipe is especially developed for coconut flour. Psyllium husks would be something to experiment, but most probably the texture will be completely different and you have to tweak heavily the amounts of other ingredients.