Recipe Description
Welcome to the ‘#HealthyEating’ series! #HealhyEating is launched to encourage everyone to love themselves and live a healthier life. In this quarter, we are sharing vegetarian and/or vegan western recipes, Durian Crepe. For this recipe, we opted for saffron instead of artificial colouring to give us the natural golden tint on our crepes. You may, of course, substitute with a few drops of yellow food dye.
Want more vegetarian or vegan recipes? Check out the ‘#HealthyEating’ recipe folder.
Unless you are a durian purist who only believes in eating durian in its natural form and abhors any confectionery made with durian, you’ll love durian crepe.
These golden pillows used to be such a rarity that I remember my first time eating them was at a hotel that charged RM8++ each. That was 20 years ago.
Since then, durian crepes have become more readily available and affordable. However, the recent renewed interest in durian crepes especially those filled with speciality durian varieties, particularly musang king durian, has hiked up the price again.
The cost of making these at home would depend on the price of your durian because the other ingredients are not very expensive. We were fortunate that our colleague Chow How Ban had managed to get hold of the Durio Graveolens fruit, which we used for the durian custard filling.
Also called Durian Dalit in Sabah, it is known as the red-flesh durian. However, trees in this subspecies may produce fruits that range from dark yellow to orange to red. The fruit that How Ban brought us has a deep orange colour, which gave us a nice golden filling for our durian crepes.
The flavour is also quite unique. Although it has the unmistakable durian scent, its flavour can be described as closer to a jackfruit with a subtle lychee undertone. If you get a chance to taste this durian, you’d come to love it as most of my colleagues did.
For this recipe, we opted for saffron instead of artificial colouring to give us the natural golden tint on our crepes. You may, of course, substitute with a few drops of yellow food dye.
For those who are not familiar with non-dairy whipping cream, it is usually not available at a supermarket. You would have to get them from a bakery supply shop in the frozen section.
If you are unable to get the non-dairy product, you may substitute it with whipping cream instead. Remember to add two tablespoons of icing sugar to the cream while whisking. The non-dairy whipping cream is already sweetened.
Recipe Ingredient
- Crepe batter:
- 8 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 4 tbsp tapioca flour
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tbsp custard powder
- 2 tbsp castor sugar
- 2 whole eggs
- 80 ml whole milk
- 300 ml cold water
- 2 tsp cooking oil
- 2 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 pinch of saffron, activated with a little hot water
- oil for frying
- Custard filling:
- 200 ml whole milk
- 3 tbsp custard powder
- 1 tbsp castor sugar
- 100g durian pulp
- 100ml non-dairy whipping cream
Instructions
- Sift together all-purpose flour, tapioca flour, cornstarch and custard powder into mixing bowl. Add sugar, eggs, milk, water, oil, vanilla and saffron tincture and whisk until smooth. Sieve through strainer to remove any lumps, and allow to sit for 30 minutes.
- Combine milk, custard powder and sugar in a saucepan and heat to a light simmer. Stir in durian pulp and chill custard for 30 minutes.
- Whisk non-dairy whipping cream to stiff peaks. Fill into piping bag and chill for 30 minutes.
- Brush a little oil on a non-stick pan heated on low to medium. Ladle crepe batter in an even layer and fry on one side until cooked. Remove from pan when batter has dried out. Repeat until batter is finished.
- To assemble durian crepes, lay out crepe on a flat surface. Pipe in a layer of whipped cream, spoon on a layer of durian custard, and pipe over another layer of whipped cream. Fold crepe over into a square pillow. Chilled until ready to serve with a light dusting of icing sugar.
