Our cooking travels have brought us this month to France!
Although your average French family is probably more apt at flipping crepes than we are – the delicious flat like pancake is a fantastic treat to make with kids and worth a try – even if you are not an expert at flipping. When cooking with the kids, I try to choose recipes where they do most of the work (including the clean up) With crepes, there are many opportunities for measuring adding, and mixing ingredients. (Real life MATH!) Since my kiddos are 3 and 6, I still am in charge of the flipping or flopping in my case. Either way – pretty or not, they sure turn out tasty!
We brought the globe out to find France and talked about how European countries have influenced each-others cooking, as the french crepe is very similar to the modern Russian bini (same flat pancake rolled around a beef and onion mixture) This also brought out a great discussion about how ideas travel now and in the past. (love mini history lessons in the kitchen!) We talked a little about the history of the crepe, which I didn’t know until I read more about it. The recipe that we use is in Annabel Karmels cooking with kids recipe book (she is a big fan of mine!), but there are more ideas here and here. We just did the classic white crepe, but there are also fantastic recipes for a wee bit healthier and different tasting crepes. I think we will try a buckwheat version next!
Here are some fun Picture Books about Paris that your child might enjoy as they are making Crepes!
Would you like to join in this month in France?
You can download Printable
Check out the other participating blogs for plenty of wonderful ideas
Please link up your French food or activity in the linky below. We’d love to see it!
Hi Kim and Amanda! I just came across your post via Pinterest as I am looking for ideas on how to facilitate a fun and festive French cooking experience for my students. I am a grade 4-6 Core French as a Second Language teacher in Belleville, ON and on Wed., Dec. 17, students in groups of about 13 students, I will have a maximum of 20 minutes to with students to make/fill crepes. I'm debating over whether or not I should just make all of the crepes in advance and have the fill them while I provide some history behind them, or maybe even have the batter made in advance and allow them to cook them using a griddle, then fill and enjoy? I want to do something around a traditional French Christmas dish, though it is entirely up to me what we do at my station. Any thoughts or suggestions based on your experience? Would you think another fish might be more feesible?
Merci,
Kristie Lawrence