Blini

Ingredients

Opara (sponge)

• 300 mlwhole milk, lukewarm
• 7 gdried yeast, or 20 g fresh
• 1 tspsugar
• 120 gbuckwheat flour
• 80 gplain flour

Batter

• 2eggs, separated
• 200 mlwhole milk, warm
• 40 gbutter, melted
• 1 tspsalt
• 1 tbspsugar

To cook and serve

• oil, and half a peeled onion on a fork, for greasing the pan
• 200 mlsmetana (soured cream)
• melted butter, honey, sour cherry jam and tvorog, for the table

Directions

1. Whisk the yeast and sugar into the lukewarm milk, beat in both flours to a smooth batter, cover and leave somewhere warm for 1 hour 30 minutes, until domed and bubbling. This sponge is the opara, and it is what makes real blini faintly sour, lacy and aerated.
2. Beat in the yolks, warm milk, melted butter, salt and sugar. The batter should be about the consistency of single cream. Cover and rise again for 45 minutes.
3. Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and fold them in gently. Do not stir or beat the batter down after this; risen blini batter is handled as little as possible.
4. Heat a small cast-iron pan, 16–20 cm across, over medium heat until a drop of water skitters across it.
5. Grease it with half an onion speared on a fork and dipped in oil. This is the traditional method and it seasons the pan as well as stopping the batter sticking.
6. Pour in a small ladle of batter and swirl to a thin round. Cook 60–90 seconds, until the surface is covered in burst bubbles, the edges look dry and the underside is lacy and brown.
7. Flip and cook 30–40 seconds more, then stack on a warm plate, brushing each blin with melted butter as it lands.
8. Serve hot in a tall stack, with soured cream, honey and jam, folded into quarters or rolled around tvorog.

Technique

• Blini are the food of Maslenitsa, the butter week before Lent, when they are eaten by the dozen. The round golden shape is usually explained as a sun symbol, which is folklore rather than documented fact.
• The first one always fails: pervyi blin komom, the first pancake is a lump, is a Russian proverb for exactly this. The pan is not yet at temperature, so sacrifice it and carry on.
• Buckwheat is the old flour and gives the grey colour and the earthy tang. All-wheat blini are lighter and more common now, and yeast-free ones are properly called blinchiki, not blini.
• The batter must be thin. Thick batter gives a bread-like pancake with no lace.

Substitutions

• No buckwheat flour: use all plain flour and add 1 tbsp soured cream to the sponge for a little of the missing tang.
• No fresh yeast: 7 g dried, as given, dissolved in the warm milk.
• No tvorog: ricotta beaten with a spoon of sugar and lemon zest.

Variations

• Blinchiki, thin unyeasted crêpes rolled around sweet or savoury fillings.
• Blini made with ryazhenka (baked fermented milk) for a deeper, caramel note.
• Blini s tvorogom, folded into parcels around sweet curd cheese and fried in butter.

History

Thin yeast pancakes eaten by the stack during Maslenitsa, the pre-Lent butter week, their round shape linked to the sun.

Frequently asked questions

What is Blini?

Blini is a breakfast from Russia: thin pancakes with butter, smetana or caviar; Maslenitsa staple. Thin yeast pancakes eaten by the stack during Maslenitsa, the pre-Lent butter week, their round shape linked to the sun.

How long does Blini take to make?

Blini takes 20 min of preparation and 2 hr 30 min rising and frying of cooking. The recipe makes about 20 blini, serves 4. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Blini?

Yes, within limits. No buckwheat flour: use all plain flour and add 1 tbsp soured cream to the sponge for a little of the missing tang. No fresh yeast: 7 g dried, as given, dissolved in the warm milk. No tvorog: ricotta beaten with a spoon of sugar and lemon zest.

What is the most important thing to get right in Blini?

Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and fold them in gently. Do not stir or beat the batter down after this; risen blini batter is handled as little as possible.