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Cherry Crepes Champagne Cheese Crepes combine sweet cheese and cherries...and a drop of Champagne.

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February 2008

Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Cereals, Pancakes & Waffles

Crepini Café

Sweet Crepes & Savory Crepes Make Special Occasions Easy

CAPSULE REPORT: Love crepes but don’t have much opportunity to enjoy them? Crepini Café wants to change all that. They’ll make them fresh in your favorite flavors and ship them to you. You just need to heat and eat!

Add a little elegance to your life with the delicious, ready-to-heat crepes from Crepini Café. In our business, we never know what we’re going to discover next—and this boutique company, which makes fresh crepes to order, may become your favorite new special treat and hostess gift. A snap to heat and serve, elegant crepes can be kept in the freezer and called upon to grace your table in minutes.

Crepes are delicate pancakes, and Crepinis nestle sweet and savory fillings in your choice of shape, using local organic and natural ingredients. The company makes crepes in two styles: The classic rolled French crepe, and the blini-style triangular pocket shown in the photo above.

Varieties

The biggest challenge is deciding what flavors to order. Crepini Café’s selection is too tempting. There are excellent choices in both sweet and savory styles, and new flavors and seasonal additions are forthcoming. The current roster includes:

Sweet Crepes	Savory Crepes
Blueberry Ginger Twist	Four Cheese Basil
Caramel Apple	Feta Olivier
Champagne Cheese (with cherries)	Greenwich Spinach
Hazelnut Raisin	Herbed Crab Mango
La Dolce Vita (dark chocolate and Grand Marnier)

Where should you start? In general, we liked the more robust-tasting crepes, that were so flavorful that no sauce or other topping was required.

On the savory side, Feta Olivier (photo at right) and Greenwich Spinach took top honors. We couldn’t get enough!
For the sweet tooth, Caramel Apple, Hazelnut Raisin and La Dolce Vita hit the spot. In the Caramel Apple recipe, apples and cranraisins are caramelized in butter and sugar. We topped them with caramel sauce, as you can see in the photo below. Hazelnut Raisin and La Dolce Vita are both filled with chocolate. Hazelnut Raisin includes banana and cranraisins; La Dolce Vita has plums soaked in Grand Marnier, plus orange zest. The chocolate is relatively sweet, and crème fraîche is a good counterpoint.
For a more elegant dessert, Champagne Cheese isn’t particularly Champagne-like, but the cherry flavor is nice.

Feta Olivier, garnished with seasoned olives from McSweet’s Gourmet Olive Bliss, and Mediterranean Feta from Nikos. Rolled crepe photos by Claire Freierman.

The Four Cheese Basil was too mild for us. Blueberry Ginger is full of blueberries, but they are frozen, and when they thaw, they’re not very flavorful.
We didn’t taste Herbed Crab Mango, but it sounds great!

The company also sells plain (“Naked”) crepes if you want to fill your own.

For dessert, these Caramel Apple Crepes were
ready in minutes. We sautéed apples in butter and sugar in advance, and heated them in the microwave while the crepes were cooking in the skillet. We added caramel sauce from The King’s Cupboard.

Cooking Your Crepes

It’s easy to turn out the crepes. Just lift them from the box and place them:

In the oven, in a lightly greased baking dish, for 6 to 10 minutes
In a skillet, for a few minutes (we used butter to make them golden brown)
In the microwave, for a minute

We tried all three techniques. While it’s a bit more caloric and creates more aroma in the kitchen, we preferred the results of sautéing in a skillet with butter. The crepes got crispy, which we liked, and the unsalted butter added nice flavor.

At the end of the day—or evening—we’re thrilled to have found Crepini Café. Delicious crepes in minutes aren’t easy to come by. They’re a special-occasion treat, and a charming gift for any food-loving friend.

CREPINI CafÉ
Sweet and Savory Crepes

6-Crepe Box
Price Varies By Flavor
$11.99 to $13.99
Crab, $14.99

You’ll note on the website that the crepe photos are in the “blini” style, as in the photo at the top of this review. We prefer the rolled style, as shown in the rest of the photos in this review—they taste the same, but look more elegant.

Purchase online* at
CrepiniCafé.com.

*Prices and flavor availability are verified at publication but are subject to change. Shipping is additional. THE NIBBLE does not sell products; these items are offered by a third party with whom we have no relationship. This link to purchase is provided as a reader convenience.

We decorated the blueberry crepes with fresh blueberries to heighten the blueberry flavor.

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