MASTER THE CLASSICS
NEW FOOD SERIES
Add some French flair to your recipe repertoire with this elevated take on the humble pancake. A guaranteed showstopper, there’s a reason this decades-old dish is a much-loved sweet treat
This recipe is good for getting ahead. The pancakes will keep for several days in the fridge, and the sauce overnight. Just bring to room temperature, then reheat when ready to serve
‘This comes as a surprise to some people, but despite being a recipe developer, my favourite food moments are the flops. A sunken cake? Spread on more frosting. Rice overcooked? Use it to thicken a soup. What I’m saying is, with some inventive thinking there is no such thing as recipe failure, though I’d argue that none of my kitchen reinventions have come out quite as successfully as the French classic, crêpes Suzette.
The story goes that way back in 1895 in Monte Carlo’s Café de Paris, a 15-year-old assistant waiter named Henri Charpentier was preparing a dessert for the Prince of Wales, aka the future King Edward VII. When the dish caught alight, Henri thought it was ruined, until trying it. He’d later describe it as, ‘the most delicious medley of sweet flavours I had ever tasted.’ Luckily Edward felt the same way and the dish was born, christened with the name of the prince’s dinner guest, a young woman called Suzette.
Of course, like any good urban legend, this story has been contested. French foodie tome Larousse Gastronomique suggests Charpentier would have been too young at the time to have been put in charge of serving the prince, while others claim the dish was instead named after French actor Suzanne Reichenberg, who served the pancakes warm from the flames to other actors while on stage. Multitasking at its finest. Whatever the story, it’s a recipe worth having in your repertoire.
The good news is, crêpes Suzette is deceptively simple to make. Take one batch of pancakes, add a buttery sweet citrus sauce and voilà, you’ve got a dessert for the ages. True authenticity calls for tangerines, but for ease and availability, oranges work just as well. However, to really capture the theatrics of the dish and embrace its famous heritage, you need to go the way of the flambé.
The team at The Ritz in London is known for its crêpe wizardry, with the hotel’s food and beverage operations manager Luigi Cagnin putting that largely down to the booze and the blaze. ‘The dish would not be the same without the alcohol used for the final flambé – none of the theatre would be present, and the sauce would be too sweet,’ he explains. ‘At The Ritz, we prepare the crêpes with a double flambé – first Grand Marnier then cognac – which is all done in the stunning settings of the restaurant.’
Very luxurious. But, as a home cook, if you want the flavo
