Guest Post: Healthy Persimmon Crêpes

I’m very happy to present the first guest post, from the talented photographer, blogger, and nutritionist Emiko Taki, while I tend to the fulltime job of feeding and caring for Delia and Daphne. I’m delighted that Emiko is part of this community. You can see some of  work at her blog,  KitchenEm.

.

.

By Emiko Taki

This is very similar to the Persimmons Grand Marnier in The Breakaway Cook, but was made rather spontaneously. Recently, I was working on a recipe involving lots of egg whites/meringue, and hated to waste all the egg yolks that were piling up in my poor neglected rice bowl.

So I decided to make some crêpes. But I didn’t want them to be another anonymous number on a crêpes shop menu.

One recipe I consulted called for a quarter-cup of melted butter — a half stick.  Now,  I do realize that butter is often essential for many, many desserts, but do I really need, or want, that much butter in my crêpes? I decided to replace the butter with some 1% milk, and added some cardamom and cinnamon to spice up the batter. (The nutritionist in me can’t help but say: people often mistake the percentage on the milk carton for the amount of fat, but it’s actually fat percent measured in weight. So, whole milk is about 50% fat and 2% milk is about 33% fat.)

The crêpes looked and tasted pretty good, much better than I expected. But then what? Do I dress them up by adding a blob of whipped cream and smearing on some chocolate fudge? That would totally defeat the purpose of making it low fat. I looked around the kitchen and found a few persimmons that I got from my colleague, still not quite so Persimmon-orange, and not ready to be eaten fresh just yet. Fantastic! I sliced it thinly, simmered in a little water, and  finished with a little bit of sugar and bourbon. That’s when I thought of Eric’s book and there it was! Okay, my version is cheap – not quite the Grand Marnier, but it tasted great. I’m not too fond of overly syrupy, sugary desserts, yet the crêpes & persimmons just by themselves were a bit too dry; I added a tablespoon of Greek yogurt, which rounded it out perfectly.

.