Orange Crepes Suzette

Our Elysian finale is going to be after-dinner pancakes fragrant with orange, luscious with strawberry, steeped in sauce set for the cockles of the heart.

The recipe:

Sift together into a bowl ¾ cup flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ¼ teaspoon salt.
Beat together 1 ¼ cups buttermilk, 1 egg, grated rind of 1 orange. Stir into the dry ingredients until smooth.
Bake on a hot, lightly greased griddle until golden on both sides. If you use a level measuring tablespoon to a pancake, count on 20 cakes.
Cakes may be made ahead.

For the sauce:

open 1 small can mandarin orange sections.
Pour the liquid into a saucepan.
Add 2 tablespoons sugar and heat with strips of rind cut from 1 orange.
When removing rind from orange, use a light hand — only the colored part has the flavor you want.
Cook gently until liquid thickens and rind is tender.
Remove rind; it has worked wonders.
Add 2 teaspoons cornstarch to ¾ cup orange juice and add to the saucepan along with 1 teaspoon rum extract.
Heat again until mixture thickens and add orange sections, and sliced strawberries if you wish.

Stop kitchen work here if you plan to finish with a flourish at the dining room table!

Next step:

Reheat sauce, and warm pancakes in slow oven.
In a chafing dish put a round of the little pancakes, heap sauce over, more pancakes, more sauce, and heat them together for 4 or 5 minutes until flavors swim together.
When piping hot, serve.
Servings of 3 cakes each come to only 124 calories.

With the crepes comes coffee, hot and dark, and the feast is at a fullness, the day at a peak, the compliments rise like a carol, the satisfaction is sound as a bell.

Rest ye merry, everywhere, today with not an extra pound to carry into tomorrow!

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Tangy Cranberry - Apricot Sauce - http://christmas-cooking.blogspot.com/2008/01/tangy-cranberry-apricot-sauce.html
Orange Crepes Suzette - http://christmas-cooking.blogspot.com/2008/01/orange-crepes-suzette.html