I’ve never really thought of myself as a perfectionist. I always thought of perfectionists as those people with lovely handwriting and Martha Stewart level obsessiveness when it comes to every aspect of their life. I was pondering this because I have become stalled when it comes to this blog, amongst other things. I’m trying to get to the root of this problem and one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging is that I want everything to be perfect. I want what I write to be witty and interesting. I want the photos to be just right, and the recipes need to be tried and true.
The recipe is the easy part for me lately. I have several recipes that I want to share but I’ve been worrying over the photos because I’m not able to achieve the vision in my mind. Even when I’m begrudgingly satisfied with the photos, my next, and most formidable hurdle, is always writing the blog post.
I’m forcing myself to get over this blog writing funk. I’m fully aware that life isn’t perfect so why I feel like I need to write some sort of masterpiece that will go viral is beyond me. I don’t always make perfect dinners, even though I usually only share the good stuff I made on social media. It’s my highlight reel after all. There are currently hot dogs in my fridge that will be cooked for dinner tonight and last night I had Cheesies for dinner at 8:30. My boys had quesadillas before Timothy’s T-ball game so I wasn’t completely derelict in making some sort of a meal for the family. Actually, I was. My husband made those for the kids while I tried to squeeze in a workout in the living room while I listened to the chafing sound of the boys whine in the kitchen.
Somedays I pull it all together and I make a lovely sit-down dinner replete with dessert. Other days, I get the dinner sorted but dessert is stale cookies from the pantry. Sometimes, dinner is grilled cheese but I’m able to get a simple, yet rather attractive dessert made, like these crepes. They can be made earlier in the day and the chocolate sauce can be the kind that comes in a squirt bottle from the grocery store or you can really be on the ball and make it yourself (David Lebovitz’s recipe is simple and delicious).
I think that the way to push passed these self-erected barriers of perfectionism and insecurity will be through self-compassion and striving to avoid comparison with other. If you have some practical ideas on how to move forward with stalled creative endeavours, then please share them with me. If you feel like commiserating, then do that too.
A little note on the teff flour. It is a gluten free flour that I got from the bulk food store. If you don’t have access to it, aren’t gluten free and don’t have a strange tendency to buy esoteric flours and other ingredients, then just use regular white flour.
Hopefully this new recipe is a fresh start for me where I can just get it done, and get it out there. Plus, there is chocolate…yum.
Chocolate Teff Crepes
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup teff flour
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup milk
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Whisk the dry ingredients together.
- Whisk in the wet ingredients and let the batter sit for 15 minutes or so. Whisk it again and look to see if the consistency will spread easily. It should be quite runny, like melted ice cream.
- Heat a crepe pan, or very shallow small non-stick frying pan on the stove over a medium heat. Lightly brush the pan with oil and ladle about a 1/4 cup of batter onto the pan and immediately swirl the pan around so the batter spreads thinly and evenly over the surface of the pan. If your batter looks thick in the pan or it doesn't spread all the way to the edge, then adjust the amount of batter per crepe accordingly. My pan yields 8" crepes with 1/4 cup of batter.
- When the top of the crepe batter looks nearly dry then flip the crepe quickly. Let it cook on the other side for about 10 seconds and then remove it to a plate. Repeat step 3 and 4 for each crepe. (Make sure you oil the pan well if your pan isn't non-stick)
- Serve immediately topped with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and fresh or preserved fruit. (See note if making the crepes for later)
- You will get 10-12 crepes, depending on the size of your pan.
These look great! I love that they are gluten-free!
Thanks for sharing this recipe! I’ve been meaning to give teff a try, and I figure that I can’t possibly go wrong if it involves pairing it with chocolate and cherries. Fingers crossed I can find some time this weekend to whip up a batch.
PS: F*ck perfection. Seriously. Food (and for that matter, life in general) is better when it’s a little bit messy, so you may as well just embrace the imperfections and roll with it. Just think, if you’d gotten stuck on the perfect photo and the perfect post, the rest of us might not have gotten to see these awesome chocolate and cherry crepes… and how much would that suck? 🙂 I will take chocolate over perfection ANY DAY.
Thanks Isabelle :). Teff crepes are much more fragile than regular crepes since they don’t have that helpful gluten holding them together. Its a nice brunch or dessert to make for someone who is gluten intolerant and everyone can enjoy them.
I’m happy to smear chocolate all over my messy life. 🙂
I COMPLETELY understand what you’re talking about. I’m constantly concerning myself with the perfection of my site, and always worried that somethings not tasty enough, pretty enough, or interesting enough. I had amazing feedback recently on a recipe for pico de gallo, even though I really hesitated to publish it – it just seemed too simple. But sometimes you have to push through those barriers and embrace the process. And I think you’re doing a great job of that.
Now, I want to say how excited I am to see something like this made with teff! The thing is, there are soooo many food blogs out there just publishing the same old boring things, without innovation or creativity, but it’s bloggers like you and recipes like this that push the boundaries a little and expose people to new ideas. And that’s phenomenal.
Thanks so much Sean. I needed to hear this today. It is hard to turn off those self-criticisms but I’m trying to.
I already said how delicious these look on IG! But I wanted to chime in on what you wrote because I COMPLETELY feel the same way! There are so many times I’m just not happy enough with my photos to end up posting the recipe. And with work and real life taking up most of my time, I only really have time to do recipe shoots once every few weeks, meaning I only get to update my blog once per month if I’m lucky. My pageviews and comments have dropped as a result, which I know aren’t the most important things, but it’s still discouraging.
I know you mentioned writing your blog post can be difficult, but I really like this post and the way you keep it real. 🙂
Thanks Chelsea. I really appreciate your kind comment.
Thankfully we have summer light right now if we feel compelled to reshoot photos but I’m trying to just go with what I have. Even though it is kind of tough. I’m usually so rushed when I take photos. It is often right around dinner time (I serve what I make for photos for dinner), so the kids are whining and the dog is trying to snatch the food off of the table while I take pics. It is chaos. LOL
I had my first baby a week ago and, despite the same feeling of ‘Will I ever create something beautiful again’, this post is a great reminder to take small pleasures in the simple things. It doesn’t HAVE to be so fucking complicated.
Congratulations Kelly! The first weeks can be really difficult but then you find yourself knowing what to do and that’s pretty cool.
Perfectionism is horrible, that’s for sure. 🙁 Honestly, I think your photo and recipe here are lovely! So often we’re way too hard on ourselves and see the flaws in everything. But when we step back and see that we created something AMAZING that so few people can do, it might help. 🙂
Thanks Cassie! I’ve been trying to go back and look at old blog posts now and then just to remind myself how far I’ve come. Some of my old photos are just embarrassing but I will leave them up for now. I plan to re-shoot some photos eventually but it is a low priority for me right now.
I’m no stranger to crepe making – growing up in my household that is what we were served instead of regular fluffy pancakes. My mom ONLY made crepes and I learned to do the same. That said, making these crepes was an unmitigated disaster. They are sooooooo fragile that i could not turn one over cleanly (without tearing it) to save my life.
So while they taste great, i would be too embarrassed to serve these to guests because they truly looked like a dark brown pile of mush.
I’m sorry that you had such a rotten time making these crepes. I have made them many times and while they are very delicate they stayed together for me. The only thing I can think of that would make such a difference for you is that maybe your pan was bigger so your crepes were larger & thinner. I know that traditional French crepes are very thin and since you are quite experienced making those, your batter might have been thinner than mine. The crepe pan I used yielded 8″ crepes and I used 1/4 cup batter per crepe. I will update the recipe to make sure this is more clear in the recipe.