May 6: National Crepes Suzette Day

The theme of tonight: If in doubt, add more alcohol. If that doesn't work, add in a different type of alcohol.

The recipe for Crepes Suzette called for Grand Marnier or Cointreau (orange flavored liquors). I was away from the house and needed to determine if we had any of that liquid at home. I sure didn't have that fancy sounding stuff in my private liquor supply. My mom had the privilege of doing numerous sniff-tests and several taste-tests to determine if we had any orange flavored liquor. We finally settled on Tuaca, which is a vanilla citrus flavored liquor. Citrus was close enough to orange for me.

So far so good.

JazzyJ's Fancy Flambe Crepes Suzette:

Ingredients:

For crepes:
- 1 cup flour
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/4 cup milk
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup butter

For sauce:
- 1/4 cup butter
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 large orange, both the juice from and the peel zested
- 1/2 cup orange liquor (recommended: Cointreau or Grand Marnier)

Instructions for Crepes:
1. Blend flour, eggs, milk, and salt together. Add melted butter and beat well.
2. Refrigerate for two hours or more (can refrigerate overnight)
3. In a lightly greased pan, over medium heat, add 1/4 cup batter and gently swirl around until the pan is covered.
4. Cook for about 60 seconds before flipping and then cook for 30 seconds until crepe-like.
5. Use up all the batter to make crepes and then stack them.
6. Once they have cooled a little, fold them in half.

Instructions for sauce: (Make sure you have a fire extinguisher near by)
1. In a large pan, melt butter. Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
2. Add the juice and zest form the orange and bring to a simmer.
3. Reduce heat to low.
4. Place the folded crepes in the pan one at a time. Once placed in the sauce, using tongs, fold the crepe in half again so you half a small triangle shape.
5. Repeat with crepes. Gently move crepes aside to make room for new crepes.
6. Once all the crepes are in the pan, warm up the liquor in the microwave quickly and pour on top of crepes.
7. Using a long match (or a dragon) light the sauce on fire. The fire will go out once the alcohol is burned up.
8. Let cool slightly and serve immediately for best results.
9. Congratulate yourself (if you actually managed to light the sauce on fire).

That doesn't seem too difficult now does it? WRONG.

It took me about six tries until I managed to light the sauce on fire. I kept adding more and more alcohol. We added Cognac to the crepes in addition to more Tuaca. Once lit, it flamed for about three seconds (in which I shrieked loudly in joy) until the flame went out.

I don't have a lot of experience lighting matches. Therefore I really struggled the first couple of times. At one point, the sauce didn't light, but the match created a lot of smoke. We quickly opened up the windows and my mom started trying to fan the smoke outside using a towel.

But they were superb, even if they weren't really flambeed. However, we didn't catch the house on fire and we didn't even have to use the fire extinguisher which is good because even though I am properly trained on how to use a fire extinguisher thanks to my job at Disneyland, I'm not sure I could actually use one.

I'll leave you with this successful video of me flambeing. I won't bore you with the other videos. 

It was certainly an adventure. And that's what I live for.