Oui, oui, we make our buckwheat crepes in advance

Yes, much has passed since my last post. Lots of life happening--not a lot of blogging. Suffice it to say that, as far as crepes are concerned, we are still learning as we go...

But now, there is burning (or let's say well-done) topic I'd like to get off my griddle:

We make our buckwheat crepes in advance for our events!

OK. Now that I've said it and it's out in the open for all of my seven blog followers to see, let me explain myself.

If you've made it by Crepes Paulette at the Bentonville Farmer's Market on Saturday, and if you've had the time and inclination to watch the action inside the trailer, you most likely noticed me peeling buckwheat crepes off a big pile behind me at the griddle instead of pouring and spreading the batter as I do with the sweet crepes. Now, I have been amazed at how few people bring this up when they pick up their order, but perhaps that's just because they take pity on me and don't want to bother me while I'm in the weeds. At any rate, I'd like to explain our choice to pre-cook our buckwheat crepes.

There are three main reasons for making the buckwheat crepes in advance:

1) Expediency. It was our third event. Ever. May 1, 2010. Up until then, we had been lucky. The early spring season and rain had kept away all but the most die-hard downtown fans, and we had neatly scraped by with our woeful lack of training, turning out crepes at a relatively leisurely pace, etc., etc. But then May 1 rolled around. Beautiful. Balmy. Bathed in the lovely Ozark dusk colors of the season...and everyone came out. Not only were there the normal Downtown Bentonville First Friday hoards, but our faithful French marketer extraordinaire, Stephanie, had strong-armed all her "amigas of Bentonville" friends into attending and patronizing our little stand, too. The rest is history. Great embarassment on our part. People waiting an hour for a crepe, me turning around to see 50 orders awaiting my attention, etc. etc. Let's speak of it no more.

Since then, we've revamped a bit. Orders are taken only when they can be met within a reasonable time frame. Your crepes are prepared to order, but we still want to make your wait as short as possible. So, preparing the buckwheat crepes in advance, thereby cutting out the spreading and cooking time, allows us to speed up the process.

2. Efficacy. Crepes are delicate things. They should be--that's part of their charm. However, for our purposes (they are stuffed and folded into our paper pouch and meant to be portable), there is some virtue in a little crepe-strength. By a happy coincidence, making the crepes a day in advance seems to fortify them without altering their oh-so-thin profile. They seem to shrink a little bit, which may help their durability, but doesn't seem to alter their desirability...

3. Temperature. Buckwheat galettes are cooked at a higher temperature on the griddle than their flour-based counterpart, the sweet crepe. Now, I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but Madame Poupon, our trailer, is a hotbox. We've recently made some heat-exhaust adjustments (thanks, Uncle Hal), but in summer, you'd never call her cool. So, even a few degrees lower on the griddles doesn't hurt.

So, for now, the galette-cooking part of the Crepe Paulette process will probably remain a mystery to our clients, and I will have be content to enjoy it in solitude. Who knows, though. It would be a real pleasure to include that in the made-to-order equation someday.

Trial by Tempest

While we can't call it a true test (given the freakish, stormy weather of the day), Crepes Paulette pulled off a very successful soft launch at the April 2nd First Friday Event in Downtown Bentonville (see FB entry: Soft Launch at First Friday). The crepe-faithful, as well as a good number of intrepid music lovers and generally interested parties showed up and ordered about 100 crepes. We consider ourselves lucky to have managed that number--any more might have engendered a crepe-disaster considering to our lack of two-griddle-training! It's really too bad that the weather kept crowds away because Daniel, Andy and the rest of the team at Downtown Bentonville, Inc. had put together a stellar first-of-the-season event. Such is life...

Since then, the wheels have continued to turn on Crepes Paulette. Some training (never enough!) has taken place, accounting has (finally!) been put in place, and....we have developed our savory crepe batter recipe. It's a marvel, made with only War Eagle Mill buckwheat flour, water, a little butter, salt and honey. We can't wait to try it out this coming Saturday at the first Downtown Bentonville Farmer's Market of the season. Hope you can make it and give us your thoughts.

Oh, and by the way, as promised in the last post, I'd like to reveal the name of our creaky, lovable old trailer: Madame Poupon! It was meant to be--I'll explain why and reveal the story of this perfect moniker in the next post...