Buckwheat blini
These blini are not thin crepes — they are small, thick yeasted pancakes, and buckwheat flour gives them their grey colour and a distinctly nutty, faintly bitter taste. The batter is built like bread, in two stages: first a sponge of buckwheat alone, then the rest. Whipped egg white goes in at the very end, so the pancake is both slightly tangy from fermentation and light.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Sponge 60 min
- Batter 15 min
- Rising 60 min
- Egg whites 10 min
- Cooking 30 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneStart a sponge with buckwheat alone
Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk with the sugar, stir in the buckwheat flour and leave for an hour, until the surface is covered in bubbles. This is the traditional way to start blini — an hour of fermentation gives the buckwheat a fuller, slightly tangy flavour.
Ingredients: 150 g buckwheat flour · 250 ml milk · 15 g fresh yeast · 1 tsp sugar
Surface full of bubbles — the sponge is ready.Add wheat flour and the rest of the milk
Stir in the plain flour, the remaining warm milk, the yolks, salt, sugar and melted butter. The wheat flour is essential here: buckwheat alone gives pancakes that fall apart as you turn them.
Ingredients: 150 g plain flour · 250 ml milk · 2 pcs eggs · 50 g butter · 1 tsp salt · 1 tbsp sugar
Leave to rise for an hour
Cover and leave for an hour somewhere warm, until visibly risen and covered in bubbles. Do not stir after rising — every stir releases gas, and that gas is what gives blini their characteristic open, holey texture.
Ingredients: 150 g plain flour · 250 ml milk · 2 pcs eggs · 50 g butter · 1 tsp salt · 1 tbsp sugar
Fold in the whipped whites
Whip the whites stiff and fold them in with a spatula in two additions, from the bottom up. They go in at the very last moment, just before cooking — left for twenty minutes they collapse and the effort is wasted.
Ingredients: 150 g plain flour · 250 ml milk · 2 pcs eggs · 50 g butter · 1 tsp salt · 1 tbsp sugar
Two additions, folding from below, as briefly as possible.Cook small pancakes in butter
Heat a pan and brush with butter. Drop 2 tablespoons of batter at a time, forming rounds about 9 cm across, 3–4 at once — blini should be small and thick, not thin like a crepe. Cook 2 minutes, until the tops are covered in bubbles that start bursting. The whole batch takes about 25–30 minutes in batches.
Ingredients: 250 g sour cream · 200 g smoked salmon · 150 g herring · ½ bunch dill · 40 g butter
Bubbles on top starting to burst — time to turn.Turn for a minute and stack under a cloth
Turn and cook another minute. Stack the finished blini under a cloth — steam from one softens the next and they all stay tender. Uncovered they dry out and go hard within a quarter of an hour.
Ingredients: 250 g sour cream · 200 g smoked salmon · 150 g herring · ½ bunch dill · 40 g butter
Serve with sour cream and fish
Serve warm with thick sour cream, smoked salmon or herring, and dill. The sour cream is not a garnish but a counterweight — buckwheat is earthy and faintly bitter, and rich, tangy cream balances it.
Ingredients: 250 g sour cream · 200 g smoked salmon · 150 g herring · ½ bunch dill · 40 g butter
Before you start
The flour ratio
Half and half is the balanced version. More buckwheat gives a stronger flavour but more fragile pancakes; wheat alone is simply an ordinary drop scone. Do not go below a third buckwheat, or what makes blini distinctive disappears.
Blini versus crepes
Russian bliny can also be large and thin, made without yeast — a different dish under the same name. Yeasted bliny with buckwheat are the older style, associated above all with Maslenitsa week; small, thick blini for caviar and salmon are a format especially popular outside Russia.
Freezing
Layer cooled blini with paper and freeze. Reheat from frozen, covered with foil, 8–10 minutes at 180°C. Not in a microwave — they turn rubbery.
