As a child I can recall having cheese blintzes periodically for breakfast on a Saturday morning or for a Sunday evening dinner (we at breakfast food whenever). The filling was light and sweet and I could eat mounds of them. Recently they moved to the top of my “to try” cooking list, primarly on the strength of that memory alone, but also because I ran across a Good Eats episode on Crepes which kicked open that memory door.
So what’s the difference between a crepe and a blintz? About all I could figure out was that a blintz is cooked/browned only on one side and it may contain yeast. It’s never flipped. Close enough. I didn’t want to bother my mom for the blintz recipe at 9:30 AM Sunday morning and after all I have the internet handy. So after some spelunking I found a recipe for a filling that was made with what I happened to have on hand: ricotta cheese, cream cheese, sugar, & almond extract.
For the crepes/blintz I opted for the Good Eats recipe. After the batter had a chance to sit I buttered up my non-stick 10″ pan an commenced to creping. Ug! There was obviously more technique in this that I recall from the show. Every time I tried to turn the buggers they tore. What I finally figured out was that I needed to let them cook about 45 seconds instead of the 30 recommended in the recipe. I also needed to use a more flexible spatula for turning and while I wanted my crepes slightly larger than the 1 oz recomended, getting them too big created turning problems too.
So after trashing the first 3 or so I got the technique down to a reasonable methodology. Eventually I tried making a blintz by letting the cooking time go to a minute before removing (perhaps blintzes are for crepe cooks that can’t flip). Those turned out OK too!
Since nobody in my house is up early on Sunday I had these all to myself, but I didn’t figure on eating all of them (I came close). The manufacture was easy: spread on the filling – I added some fresh rasberry jam I made the day before – and roll. Dust with powered sugar and consume.. and consume.. and consume.
The cheese filling was good – moms is better so I’ll have to get that recipe – but combined with the raspberry jam – man were they grand! I saved 2 crepes for anyone that wanted a taste but I don’t think they will last long. Making them was a challenge but the taste and memories they brought back were worth the effort.
