Here is our quick and fool proof recipe for the perfect crêpes this pancake day. The good thing is, you don’t need ready made batter from the supermarket – forget all that. All you need is three ingredients and it’s almost guaranteed these will be in your fridge/store cupboard. Plain flour, eggs and milk.
Don’t be scared about cooking these, it’s almost guaranteed the first one will be a mess – either too thin and have holes in, or too thick and sort of spongy. It’ll take a couple goes to get them just right, but once you do they cook so quickly and effortless, it seems strange in the UK we only really make these once a year.
Cook in a fairly hot pan with a little rub of butter on the surface, the butter should foam right away and then you should ladle in your batter immediately – there should be enough batter ladled into the pan to create a circle about 2/3’s the diameter of the pan and then use the pan and gravity to swirl the runny batter around the edge of the pan. The more you swirl, the thinner the pancake and the crispier the edges.
Serve with some of your favourite toppings. In the UK, arguably, the most popular are:
1. Fresh Lemon and Sugar
2. Strawberry Jam
3. Nutella, Nutella and more Nutella.
If you’re looking to branch out from the norm, some different ideas for your toppings could be:
1. Nutella & Biscoff (Biscella as @frankencreations calls it).
2. Sliced banana and peanut butter
3. Crêpe Suzette – Sugar, butter, orange juice and Grand Marnier
4. Dulce de leche & Mascarpone
5. Cumberland sausage pancake roll. It’s like a toad in the hole, quite bizare and strangely satisfying. Dip in gravy for even more bizarreness.
Full details on how to make these delicious pancakes are in the recipe card and our tutorial video below. Follow these and you’ll be whipping a batch up in about 10 minutes (plus resting)!
Video Tutorial
The Recipe

Easy 3 Ingredient Crêpes
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Whisk
- Spatula
- Non-Stick Frying Pan
- Ladle
Ingredients
- 125 g Plain Flour
- 2 Whole Eggs
- 300 ml Milk
Instructions
Preparation
- Whisk the eggs up together and add three tables spoons of the milk to it.
- Add the flour to the mixing bowl and make a well in the bottom
- Pour the egg mixture in and start to whisk and incorporate the flour
- When thick, start adding milk a little at a time and whisk until fully incorporated and smooth. Note - it will be very runny, this is expected.
- Let the batter stand for about 15-30 minutes.
Cooking
- Put the frying pan on a medium high heat
- Add a little oil or butter to the pan and mop out any excess with some kitchen rollNOTE - alternatively use cooking spray
- Add a ladle full of the batter to the hot greased pan and swirl it around so it covers the entire pan.Note - Fill in any gaps with extra batter blobs.
- Cook on high for about 1 minute until small pin prick bubbles form and the underside is starting to turn golden. Flip and cook the otherside for 10-20 seconds.
Serving
- Serve straight away or pile on top of each other and warm later in a clean non-stick pan for a few seconds each side.
- Serve with your favourite toppings and eat right away.
Notes
- Whisk the milk and eggs a little at a time to keep the batter smooth
- Don't over grease the pan, mop the excess out with kitchen roll.
- The batter will be quite runny and this is expected, a crêpe batter is completely different to a fluffy pancake batter.
- Don't worry if there are holes in the pancake when cooking, just fill them in with blobs of batter - we're not all professionals here, don't worry about it!
- You can make a big batch and heat when ready in a dry frying pan for a couple minutes.