Cheese Blintz

There are a lot of people with very strong feelings regarding the best cheese blintz recipe. We’re not going to tell you this blintz recipe is better than your Bubbe’s. We’re just saying this recipe turns out a damn fine cheese blintz. The secret—one of them, anyways—is that the filling contains farmer cheese rather than ricotta or cottage cheese. As for the other secrets, you’ll just have to try these and see.–Renee Schettler Rossi

LC Fuzzy Math Note

We like to think of cheese blintzes as the original breakfast burrito, although truth be told, we like them just as well for dessert. We like them so much, in fact, that it always feels like we’re doing fuzzy math when we make the recipe because the yield never seems to be enough, no matter how many times we multiply the recipe. Shrug.

Cheese Blintz Recipe

• Quick Glance
• 2 H
• 2 H, 15 M
• Makes about 24 blintzes

Print Recipe

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Ingredients

Directions

• Make the cheese filling
• 1. Combine the cheese, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate.
• Make the pancakes
• 2. In a bowl, combine the eggs and water and blend thoroughly. Beat in the flour and salt. The mixture will be runny but should have no lumps. (If there are lumps, strain the pancake batter.)
• 3. Pour 2 tablespoons batter into a hot, generously buttered 7-inch omelet pan or similarly sized skillet over medium-high heat. Rotate the skillet so bottom of pan is covered evenly.
• 4. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes on one side, or until golden. It may be necessary to reduce the heat to medium. Flip the pancake onto a plate, uncooked side down, and repeat this process using all the batter, adding more butter to the pan or skillet as necessary. Stack one pancake on top of the other, uncooked side down. At this point the pancakes are ready to be filled.
• Assemble the blintzes
• 5. Working with one pancake at a time, place it on your work surface, browned side down. Place 2 heaping tablespoons filling on 1/2 the unbrowned side of the pancake. Fold the pancake over once to cover the filling. Fold in the sides of the pancake. Continue rolling the blintz. Set it aside and repeat with the remaining ingredients.
• 6. Warm the remaining clarified butter in a skillet over medium heat. Place a few blintzes, seam side down, in the skillet and sauté until golden on all sides, about 2 minutes per side. Repeat with the remaining blintzes and serve hot with sour cream.

*Clarified Butter

• Clarified butter has had the milk solids removed. Because milk solids scorch at a relatively low temperature, using clarified butter enables the home cook to heat the butter to a slightly higher temperature without it turning brown and taking on any bitter notes. To make clarified butter, melt 8 ounces (2 sticks) butter in a saucepan over low heat. Remove the pan from the heat and let it stand for 2 minutes. Skim and discard any foam from the surface of the butter. Pour the clear, oily looking butter into a container, being careful to stop pouring when you reach the milky residue that has settled at the bottom of the pan. Cover and refrigerate the clarified butter until needed. Discard the milky residue. It’s as easy as that!