Crêpes Suzette: a sauce of caramel, butter and orange juice
Crêpes Suzette is a showpiece dessert, traditionally finished at the table, often with burning alcohol. But the flame is not what does the work — the sauce is: caramel dissolved in orange juice and emulsified with cold butter, which makes it thick, glossy and clinging rather than running off. The crepes themselves must be very thin — thick ones soak up the sauce and tear when folded.
Your own work in that: 46 min.
- Batter 5 min
- Resting the batter 30 min
- Crepes 20 min
- Sauce 16 min
- Serving 10 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMake a very thin batter
Whisk the flour with the eggs and half the milk until smooth, add the rest of the milk, the melted butter, sugar, salt and grated orange zest. The batter should be thinner than for ordinary pancakes — thin enough to spread across the pan by itself. Rest it 30 minutes.
Ingredients: 150 g plain flour · 350 ml milk · 3 pcs eggs · 40 g butter · 1 tbsp sugar · 1 pinch salt · 1 pcs orange zest
Cook thin crepes
In a 20 cm pan cook the crepes 60 seconds on the first side and 20 on the second. They should be very thin, almost translucent. This quantity gives 12 — about 20 minutes of cooking in all. Stack them under a cloth.
TipThick crepes soak up the sauce and fall apart when folded with a fork. If the first one comes out too thick, add 50 ml of milk to the batter.
Almost translucent, twelve of themMake a dry caramel
Spread the sugar in an even layer in a wide pan and heat over medium heat without stirring, until it melts and turns amber — about 5–7 minutes. Swirl the pan so it melts evenly. Don't stir with a spoon: the sugar will crystallise.
Ingredients: 80 g sugar · 100 g butter · 3 pcs oranges, juice · 1 pcs orange zest · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 60 ml brandy or Grand Marnier
Dry sugar, amber, unstirredAdd the juice and dissolve the caramel
Carefully pour in the juice of three oranges — it bubbles violently and the caramel seizes for a moment. Cook 4 minutes, stirring, until the caramel dissolves completely and the sauce reduces by a third. Add the zest and lemon juice.
TipKeep your face back as you pour. The caramel is at 170 °C and the juice is cold — the reaction is violent and the steam rises fast.
It bubbles hard; the caramel dissolves in four minutesEmulsify with cold butter
Turn the heat to its lowest and add the cold butter a cube at a time, swirling the pan until each melts. The sauce thickens and turns glossy. This is an emulsion: hot butter or high heat will split it into fat and juice.
TipThe technique is called monter au beurre and is used in many French sauces. Cold butter added piece by piece over low heat binds the sauce; thrown in at once it simply melts into it.
Fold the crepes in the sauce
Add the crepes one at a time, turning each so both sides soak, and fold them into quarters with a fork, pushing them to the edge of the pan. Once all are folded, spoon the sauce over. Serve immediately, with orange segments.
Ingredients: 1 pcs orange
TipTo flambé: take the pan off the heat, pour in the brandy from a glass or measure (<b>never straight from the bottle</b>), keep your face back and <b>light it with a long lighter at the edge of the pan</b>. The flame dies by itself after a few seconds as the alcohol burns off; keep a lid at hand to smother it if needed. Never do it under a running extractor hood, near curtains or near children.
One at a time, turned, folded in four
Before you start
Who Suzette was
The best-known version comes from Henri Charpentier, who years later described how, as a young waiter in Monte Carlo (reportedly in 1895), he accidentally set the sauce alight at the table of the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, and named the dessert after his companion. The story is doubtful — Charpentier was only a teenager at the time — but it has survived to this day.
Crepes the day before
They can be cooked ahead and kept in the fridge, interleaved with paper. The sauce is then made on the spot in ten minutes — the best way to serve this dessert to guests without disappearing into the kitchen.
Without alcohol
The sauce is excellent without alcohol. Add the zest of a second orange and an extra spoon of lemon juice — the alcohol contributes mainly aroma, which the zest can partly make up for.
The sauce split
Take the pan off the heat, add a tablespoon of cold water and swirl vigorously. In most cases the emulsion returns. If not, the sauce still tastes good; it merely lacks its shine.
