Extra Thin Russian Bliny - Crepes

 Russian bliny are extremely thin, and the thinner the better. There’s a bunch of various recipes online, but this one is amazing – truly extra thin and fool proof – if you follow instructions, you’ll get paper-thin crepes – the best I ever tried. I guess the secret is eggs. To cut calories, I use 1% milk and water. I also measured the quantity very carefully and took some pics to illustrate my point. I use Kitchen Aid Mixer to make it easy, as you have to whisk very thoroughly to get smooth batter.

Extra Thin Russian Bliny – Crepes

Flour – 2 cups

Milk – 1 cup

Vegetable oil – ½ cup + 1/3 cup

Eggs – 6

Boiling water – 1+1/4 cup (Optional - you can add another 1/4 cup of water or milk to make it even thinner) 

Sugar – 3 tbsp

Salt – 2+1/2  tsp

You’ll get 15 crepes – extra thin Russian Bliny

Whisk together eggs, sugar, and salt. Add flour and stir with milk until smooth and well blended, add oil and continue stirring – the batter should be thin. You can also use mixer instead of whisking manually. When batter is ready, carefully pour 1 cup of boiling water along the edge of the mixing bowl.

Pour 1/3 cup of oil in a small bowl, cut a half of a small potato or onion, pick it with a fork and keep handy to oil the skillet. You can also use any brush to spread oil in the pan. 

Heat a non-sticking skillet/frying pan, oil it with the oiled potato/onion, pour ~ 1 ladle of batter, tilt the pan so that batter covers all the bottom of 9” pan. (If you prefer, you can use crepe spreader). When the edges look crisp and the center looks dry, flip the blin carefully with a spatula and cook ~ 1 min until lightly browned.

Remove blini to a plate, put a little butter on top, and continue to stack blini on top of each other.

To serve, put a stack of blini in the middle of the table and arrange any desired fillings in bowls.

Put one blin on the plate, fill its middle with desired filling, and wrap it like a burrito in an envelope. Enjoy.

Regular fillings for blini are preserves, sour cream, ground meat fried with finely chopped onions, cottage cheese with sour cream and preserves, honey, lox or smoked salmon, caviar – choose anything you like and use your imagination.