Crepes on a Saturday

So it's Saturday and it hasn't rained in days! So much for the 'monsoons'.. they are now officially jinxed and we are yet to experience a wet wet week like we did back in the day. So after a morning of random shopping, a delicious South Indian lunch, we find ourselves twiddling our thumbs at 4 pm! Ally suggests we get ourselves a pack of cookies, rustle up a milkshake and surf channels aimlessly, I like the last two ideas but the first one makes me ache. Ache with annoyance. Store bought cookies are hardly ever anything to write home about and they are so obscenely laden with empty calories, I have to be down with the viral to want to have them. I suggest pancakes and she makes this face - "breakfast for dinner I understand but for tea time ...ummm no!" ...how about crepes...she ponders on that ...how about crepes with milk chocolate ganache I say ... "I don't like the word ganache, but yes!!" So crepes with milk chocolate 'sauce' it is!

Ingredients for the crepes:

1/2 cup flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
1 tbsp butter, and about 2 tbsp more for moistening the pan to make the crepes
1 cup milk, don't use all of it right away, start with half and add on to create a thick cream consistency.

For the Milk Chocolate Sauce:

1 cup Hershey's Milk Chocolate chips, you can use any good milk chocolate, the Indian ones tend to be very milky and when melted are almost like caramel, though Nestle Classic is pretty yummy once melted. You can go in for an imported one like Lindt or even Galaxy if you like.
4 tbsp cream
1 tbsp butter
Keep a few tbsp of milk handy, to make the consistency right once the chocolate melts. I use warm milk because I sometimes worry cold milk will make the chocolate seize.

Sift the flour, add sugar to it and set aside. Mix the egg into milk, add the vanilla essence and the butter (I use runny butter but not heat melted). Use a whisk to make a thick creamy batter for the crepes. Whisk gently but whisk well, you don't want lumps in the batter, at all!

For the chocolate sauce. Boil water in a deep pan, to make a double boiler (if you are proficient with the microwave then by all means use it!), put the chocolate and the butter in another pan, hold over the boiling water (don't let the bottom touch the water, that can overheat the pan with the chocolate and make the chocolate burn). Use a clean, dry whisk to blend the chocolate while it melts, add the cream slowly and work it in to make a thick chocolate sauce. Once it is almost all melted, take it off the boiler and whisk it all into a glistening bowl of yummy chocolate. You can use warm milk to peter it down to the thickness you like. We don't like to apply the chocolate like nutella, we like it runny so it drips out of the crepes like a decadent and amazing snack!

Now heat a small, non stick pan, moisten with butter, best is to use the paper lining of a block of butter so you get even coverage and not a little pool of butter in the center. Use a large milk ladle if you have or a small cup to measure the batter, pour on to the hot pan and tilt the pan around to cover the entire base. Let it cook on one side completely, you will see the sides come off and know its done. You can flip it if you like. Remove, slather with chocolate sauce and indulge!!

Enjoy!