French Crêpes with Chocolate Ice Cream and Fruit
Thin, lacy crêpes with a scoop of dark chocolate ice cream and a pile of fresh fruit — a dessert that stays light because the fruit does most of the talking.
I do not believe in a kitchen without dessert. I believe in dessert that is actually worth the chair you sit down in — and a stack of thin French crêpes, still warm, with dark chocolate ice cream melting into them and a heap of fruit on top, is exactly that.
The trick to keeping this from being a sugar avalanche is proportion. One crêpe, one small scoop, and then as much fruit as fits on the plate. The berries bring acidity and fibre, the dark chocolate brings depth instead of sweetness, and you finish feeling pleased rather than heavy.
Three things that make crêpes behave
- Let the batter rest. Thirty minutes on the counter, an hour in the fridge if you have it. The flour hydrates and the crêpes turn tender instead of rubbery.
- The first one is a sacrifice. It always is. Eat it standing up and carry on.
- Barely any fat in the pan. Wipe the pan with a piece of kitchen paper dipped in butter between crêpes — pooled butter makes them fry rather than set.
Choosing the fruit
Whatever is actually in season. In summer I use raspberries, strawberries and sliced peaches; in winter, orange segments, pear and pomegranate seeds, which are wonderful against dark chocolate. Frozen berries work too — thaw them in a small pan with a spoon of water and no sugar, and you have an instant sauce.
French Crêpes with Chocolate Ice Cream and Fruit
Ingredients
- 250 g plain flour (or half wholemeal for more fibre)
- 3 piece eggs
- 500 ml milk
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 30 g butter, melted, plus a little for the pan
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 500 ml dark chocolate ice cream
- 400 g mixed fresh fruit: raspberries, strawberries, peach or orange
- 2 tbsp toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
- mint leaves and a little lemon zest, to finish
Method
Whisk the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Make a well, add the eggs and about a third of the milk, and whisk from the middle outwards until smooth. Whisk in the rest of the milk, the melted butter and the vanilla — the batter should be as thin as single cream.
Cover and rest for at least 30 minutes. Do not skip this; it is the difference between lacy and leathery.
Meanwhile prepare the fruit: hull and halve the strawberries, slice the peach, segment the orange. Keep the raspberries whole. Toast the hazelnuts in a dry pan until fragrant and chop them.
Heat a 24 cm pan over medium heat and wipe it with buttered kitchen paper. Pour in a small ladle of batter, swirl immediately to coat the base, and cook for about a minute until the edges lift and the underside is golden.
Flip and cook 20–30 seconds more. Stack the finished crêpes on a plate under a clean tea towel to stay warm and soft; repeat until the batter is gone.
Fold each crêpe into quarters, put one or two on a plate, add a scoop of chocolate ice cream in the fold and pile the fruit alongside. Scatter with hazelnuts, mint and lemon zest, and serve straight away while the ice cream is still just beginning to melt.
Tip
Crêpes freeze beautifully: stack them with baking paper between each one, freeze flat, and reheat for 20 seconds in a dry pan. Dessert in the time it takes to scoop the ice cream. For a dairy-free version, use oat milk, oil instead of butter, and a good sorbet-style dark chocolate ice cream.
If you want to make it a little more of an everyday dessert rather than a Sunday one: use half wholemeal flour, skip the sugar in the batter entirely, and let the fruit and the ice cream provide all the sweetness. Nobody at my table has ever noticed.