Blini in London: Thin Pancakes and What Goes on Them

Walk into a British supermarket in December and you will find a packet labelled blini: eight small brown discs, about the size of a two pound coin, sold next to the smoked salmon. They are firm, slightly dry, faintly of buckwheat, and designed to hold a topping without bending.

That is not what the word means. In Russian, a blin is a large thin pancake, made to fill a frying pan, thin enough to see light through and soft enough to roll or fold. The small firm discs are a British canapé product that borrowed a Russian word, and if you have only met those, you have not met blini.

What they actually are

A thin batter of flour, milk, egg, a little sugar and salt, poured into a hot pan and swirled so it covers the base, cooked briefly on each side. Closer to a French crêpe than to an American pancake, though usually a little softer and a little more eggy than a crêpe.

Some are made with yeast, which is the older method and gives a slightly sour, lacy pancake with holes in it. Some are made with buckwheat, which is traditional in certain regions and is where the supermarket version gets its idea. Most home cooking today uses plain flour and no yeast, because it is quicker and the result is what most people now think of as a blin.

Ours are made to order, ten to a portion, plain and thin, which is the version that works for both sweet and savoury.

Maslenitsa

Blini have a week of their own. Maslenitsa is the last week before Lent in the Orthodox calendar, and it is spent eating pancakes, in enormous quantities, at every meal.

The reason is practical rather than mystical. Lent removes eggs, butter and milk from the diet for seven weeks, so the week before is spent using them up. The round golden shape has been attached to the sun in so many retellings that it is now part of the story, and it may even be old, but the surviving custom is really about a fridge that has to be emptied.

What that means in practice is that blini are not a dessert or a starter in Russian eating. They are a meal. A stack of twenty on a plate in the middle of the table, bowls of things around it, and everybody builds their own.

What goes on them

Three families, and mixing them on one plate is normal.

Sour things. Smetana, which is sour cream, is the base for almost everything. Cold and sharp against a warm pancake.

Sweet things. Honey, jam, condensed milk, fresh berries. Sour cherry jam is the classic and the best.

Savoury things. Salted red caviar, which is the celebration version and is what most people picture. Smoked salmon. Herring. Sautéed mushrooms. Curd cheese with herbs. Minced meat, which turns the blin into a filled parcel and is a dish in its own right.

The British habit of lemon and sugar is not traditional and is perfectly good.

Pancakes (Blini) - 10 PiecesBlini, ten thin Russian pancakes made to order. Good with honey, jam, sour cream or caviar.£25Order this

How to serve a stack

Warm, not hot, and stacked rather than spread out. A pile of blini holds its own heat for a surprisingly long time and the ones in the middle stay soft.

To reheat ours: a dry pan over medium heat, fifteen or twenty seconds a side, taken off before they crisp. Or wrap the stack in foil and put it in a moderate oven for ten minutes. A microwave works at low power in short bursts and will make them tough if you go past that.

Set out the toppings in small bowls rather than on the pancakes. Half the pleasure of the dish is that everybody assembles their own, and a pre filled blin is a different and lesser thing.

For a party

This is one of the best things we make for a gathering, and it is underordered.

A stack of blini, a bowl of sour cream, a jar of good jam and something salty is a spread that feeds a room, costs far less than a cake, and gives people something to do. It suits a brunch better than anything else on our list, and it suits a late evening after drinks better than a dessert does.

Order them with syrniki if the occasion is a breakfast, and with pirozhki if it is a savoury table.

Handmade Sirniki£18Classic Oreshki with Dulce de Leche£46

Ordering them or making them

Blini are one of the few things on our list that a competent home cook can genuinely make well, so it is worth being straight about when ordering makes sense.

Making them yourself is a good idea if you are cooking for four or fewer and you have an hour. The batter is easy, the first two will be bad and that is normal, and a properly seasoned pan makes most of the difference. Rest the batter twenty minutes before you start.

Ordering them makes sense at scale. Making forty blini is forty separate pours in a single pan, and it takes the better part of an hour of standing at a stove, which is exactly the hour you needed for everything else. A stack that arrives made and gets warmed in ten minutes is the difference between a brunch that happens and one that does not.

It also makes sense if you want yeasted ones, which are the older style, take several hours of fermentation and are genuinely fiddly.

Ours come ten to a portion, plain, so they take whatever you are putting on them.

Common questions

Are blini the same as the small ones sold with caviar?

No. Those are small, thick, firm discs made as a canapé base, usually with buckwheat. Blini in the Russian sense are large thin pancakes made to fill a pan.

How many come in a portion?

Ten.

Are they sweet or savoury?

Neither, deliberately. The batter is only lightly sweetened so the same pancake works with jam or with salmon. What they become depends entirely on what you put on them.

What are the allergens?

Gluten, eggs and milk.

How do I reheat them?

A dry pan for fifteen to twenty seconds a side, or foil wrapped in a moderate oven for ten minutes. Do not let them crisp.

Can they be frozen?

Yes. Interleave them with baking paper so they separate, freeze flat, and reheat from frozen in a pan.

How many should I order per person?

Two or three each as part of a spread with other things. Four or five each if blini are the meal.

Ordering in London

Blini are made to order in Belgravia and delivered across London and Surrey. Forty eight hours notice, £12 delivery in central London and £15 elsewhere, £50 minimum order. Choose the date at the checkout and they are made for it.