Buckwheat Blinis

Recipe works "as is"! Blinis have a vary prominent place in Russian history. The day before lent is called maslenitsa. On this day all of the village women would prepare giant stacks of very thin blini brushed with plenty of butter between each to keep them from sticking together. This, being a feast day, was accompanied by both sweet and salty foods for wrapping into each blini by hand (like a buffet table with all sorts of stuff to put in them, yum, yum! The various condiments included jams, sour cream, pickled fish, salted preserved fish, fish in oil (sardins), various meats aso prepared in numerous ways, and plenty of kvas to drink.

"Maslenitsa" is a week-long celebration where no meat is eaten, but all sorts of blinis, pancakes, and the like, with all sorts of vegetarian and dairy fillings. As for the recipe, it's pretty authentic.

I ran out of time to make these, so refrigerated the batter after the 2 hour rising time. I don't think the overnight refrigeration affected the quality. I am going to serve them as pancakes to my son, but I had them with sour cream and smoked salmon. The buckwheat flavor is a bit odd if you taste them plain, but with a topping they are so good!

Perfect. Made them as an appetizer with creme fraiche and smoked salmon and they were heavenly. Everyone asked me for the recipe! I was inspired by Andrew Zimmern who went to Russian and had buckwheat blinis with caviar. Since my family doesn't like caviar we used smoked salmon instead. Yummy!!!!!

Yum! But oh, so many pancakes! 120 small pancakes, but still, 120! No caviar here, but we even enjoyed these with just a touch of butter, which surprised my family (they are used to all buckwheat pancakes with caramelized apples, and with those pancakes, the apples are a must because the flavor of the pancake is quite strong, and we are not accustomed to buckwheat on its own). With this recipe however, the flavor of buckwheat is rather mild, probably because of the white flour. My family still loved them with apples caramelized in butter and a touch of sugar, but enjoyed them with smoked salmon as well. I'm sure that syrup would be good, and since we had leftover batter, I suggested that we could make up the leftover batter in the morning and serve them with syrup. Then my 16 yo son promptly said, "No, just butter, thanks!" --- WHEN MY HUSBAND WAS GOING TO HAVE TO COOK THEM BECAUSE SCHEDULES CHANGED, I ADDED MORE FLOUR, since he was a bit put off by the thin nature of the batter. They still came out nicely. I wish I had simply added extra flour to SOME of the batter, so I could have at least tried the Blinis according to the recipe. I'm sure they are really nice if made as per the recipe. I'm sure that the flavor would be no different..... OH, WE FOUND THAT A LOWER TEMPERATURE WAS NOT AS LOVELY, BUT PRODUCED A MORE TENDER CAKE......., depends on what you are looking for........, so just sayin'......

Strong flavor from the buckwheat. Not my favorite.

I thought the blinis tasted a little bland but maybe that's just how they taste. After all, I am serving them with smoked salmon and caviar so bland might turn out well. I halved the recipe and ended up with 27 small/medium rounds about the size of a big lime (see photo with my average sized lime lol) I can't image getting 120 from the regular recipe unless they are the size of quarters.