I get good results making crepes on non-stick pans.
It's quite easy to flip a crepe, but it's hard to get the surface to be golden. The color remains closer to white, as you see in the picture above.
On ceramic-enameled cast iron, I can get the heat considerably higher, but crepes will stick.
I see on the market cast iron pans marketed specifically for crepes, and I'm wondering whether the polymer cover from a good seasoning makes it easier to prepare a batch of crepes.
Is there a way to avoid cooking spray when preparing crepes on a cast iron pan? One reason for my failure on enameled cookware (I'm guessing) is that it's hard to add fat to the pan. Here I'd like to avoid using cooking sprays with a multitude of ingredients. I'd like to use butter only. Adding butter on the hot pan will brown (burn) the butter too quickly. Hence it's necessary to remove the pan, cool off for a few seconds, add the butter, then return to heat, which makes the process too time consuming. And even then, the butter is not a uniform coat. Using a brush, whether made from hair or from silicone, is a way to melt the brush.
The batter already has fat (butter). On non-stick, no additional fat is needed. On either of the other two, it's necessary.
Asked another way, what is the secret of making crepes on a (well-seasoned) cast iron pan?
Related:
- Does cast iron enable making crepes with no additional fat (besides that in the batter)? (that would be nice!)
- Is the Leidenfrost point relevant?
Best Answer
Enameled cast iron is indeed not as good as non-enameled, because you can't heat it as much. But it still should give you good crepes. If your butter burns, just use simple oil instead of butter - any oil will do, the more refined, the better (so the cheapest no-plant-named ones work best). It may burn to the point of getting dark brown, but you won't get the tiny coal particles you get when butter solids burn.
These two wishes are mutually exclusive. No matter what pan material you are using, if you get the proper heat transfer rate for getting a golden crepe, butter will burn badly.