I sometimes make crepe pancakes with the following recipe: 200g of flour, 350ml of milk, 2 eggs and a table spoon of vegetable oil.
I was wondering whether it was better to store the crepe batter in the freezer and cook some when I want it, or to cook the crepes then store them in the freezer.
Which way will last longer and which way will ensure that the crepes are fresh when I eat them?
It is a compromise either way. Neither will be as good as freshly made, but both methods will work. As far as frozen batter, you will either need to plan ahead, or be willing to wait for it to thaw. If you go this route, I would suggest zip style freezer bags, and freeze flat, so that it will thaw more quickly. Also, some of the leavening power will be reduced. So, if you enjoy fluffy pancakes, you might not be able to achieve that. On the other hand, frozen pancakes are fine too. However, you also lose some quality here as well. The issue is reheating...unless you have a combi-oven, where you can use steam to bring them back to life. In terms of length of storage, as long as they well packaged, the shelf life is about the same.
If your recipe is as given, you're making a crêpe, or something akin to it (as it's not risen). That's important here, I feel, as crêpes freeze much better than risen pancakes. The lack of a risen texture means one less thing to go wrong in the freezer.
We freeze both kinds of pancakes for our children, and have had great success particularly with the crêpe variety by following a few simple rules:
Then, we remove one at a time as we use them and toast them in a toaster oven (or any similar oven will work; not sure about a vertical-style toaster, if they'll keep together well enough or not, as I don't have one).
If you do it this way, crêpes seem to keep about six to eight months, and american (risen) pancakes seem to keep about three months, before the texture of the risen pancakes becomes too chewy and unappetizing (from drying out, I assume?). Crêpes might even last longer, I'm just unwilling to go beyond that for anything in the freezer that's not specifically designed for it.
Are we talking about pancakes or crepes here? I’ve never eaten pancakes, but crepes only taste good when fresh. Even letting them sit for a few minutes and then re-heating them is bad. So I’d freeze the batter. If you only want to store the batter for a short time then refrigeration works fine. Letting it sit in the fridge for a few hours actually improves the end result.
Looking up that english pancakes are similar albeit slightly thicker than french crepes and do not have leavening. I have successfully frozen crepes. You don't have to put plastic or paper between every crepe, but then you have to be patient on the thaw so that you can separate them. Otherwise, yes you need to keep separate, OR freeze singularly and then stack them up frozen. We usually will thaw, use a filling and roll and fry in butter to get back the fresh taste and texture as much as possible. Generally it takes so little time to make crepe style batter, we just make them from fresh now-a-days.
I had to really sit & think about this for a while. When we make food fresh, from scratch, (as opposed to something with enough preservatives to save it for 50 years, eek) like this, as many others mentioned, they are better fresh, and I don't know that either choice will give you a perfectly "fresh" crepe later. I bake a lot and have never saved batter, but have frozen baked goods and had them still taste pretty good. I am somewhat concerned about saving anything with raw eggs in it. I think freezing your finished crepes, or making fewer,will give the best and possibly healthier result!
