Best Pancake Recipes for Ricotta, Potato, Buckwheat Pancakes

Some of my best pancake recipes come from my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother’s kitchen and include pancake recipes for blini (‘pancakes’ in Russian), potato pancakes, buckwheat pancakes, ricotta pancakes, and more. Forget the store-bought pancake mixes and make these home-made pancake recipes on Pancake Day and this Pancake Week for the Slavic Festival of Maslenitsa.

February 16 marks the start of the Slavic festival of Maslenitsa or Pancake Week, while Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day is on 17 February. My best pancake recipes make the pancakes my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother made when she wanted to spoil her children and grandchildren. But we also have recipes for pancakes from around the world from Japan to Vietnam.

The type of pancakes baboushka and mum mostly made were thin French crêpe style pancakes we called blini (pancakes) – ‘blini’ is the plural of pancakes in Russian and ‘blin’ is the singular for pancake. But there are so many other types of pancakes from Russia, Ukraine and beyond that my family made that I’ve been cooking as I’ve been digging into my culinary heritage.

They also cooked the buckwheat pancakes that make the blini that are typically served with smoked salmon, sour cream, caviar, and dill; the potato pancakes that are something between a pikelet and potato fritter; and the ricotta pancakes, which became synonymous with Australian café culture in the 1980s and 90s.

Slavic peoples love their pancakes and there are countless kinds of pancakes cooked in Russia, Ukraine and other Slavic countries eaten for breakfast, dessert and traditionally eaten during Maslenitsa or Pancake Week. I read that at one event, cooks were flipping 200 types of pancakes, from syrniki made with tvorog or farmer’s cheese, to oladyi, small, thick, fluffy pancakes made with kefir. I’ll be sharing more of those pancakes in the future.

And if you’re looking for more recipes for pancakes from around the world, do click on that link above where you’ll find everything from Japanese okonomiyaki to Chinese scallion pancakes. We’ll be adding more recipes to both pancake collections as we publish them, so do bookmark both posts if you’re a pancake lover.

Before I tell you about our best pancake recipes, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you make any of my Russian family recipes or any of our recipes at all, please consider supporting Grantourismo. You could buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; buy something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or gifts for Asian food lovers; or book a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith for your next trip.

Now let me tell you about my best pancake recipes.

Best Pancake Recipes for Potato Pancakes, Buckwheat Pancakes, Ricotta Pancakes and More

Our best pancake recipes include the Russian-Ukrainian pancakes of my childhood, plus pancakes we love to cook at home. We love our pancakes, no matter what shape or size they come in.

Pancakes were eaten frequently at my Russian-Ukrainian grandparents’ home. When I stayed during school holidays as a child or visited for a weekend when I was at university, my baboushka made pancakes or blini, as we called them, especially when she wanted to spoil me or for holidays such as Maslenitsa.

Just a quick tip to making our best pancake recipes, which apply to all the recipes for pancakes below. Call me old-fashioned, but I like my pancakes to look home-made and rustic, and am happy just to spoon the pancake mixture directly into a fry pan or skillet.

However, Terence uses silicon egg rings which will give you perfectly round discs, and he also recommends these non-stick pancake pans with moulds. Now let’s tell you about our best pancake recipes.

Russian Blini in the Style of French Crêpes

Blini simply means pancakes in Russian although outside of Russia, blini is typically associated with the smaller pikelet-style pancakes below. Our best Russian pancakes recipe makes blini in the style of French crêpes if you’re looking for a quick and easy pancake recipe.

My Russian grandmother made these sweet, thin, buttery pancakes for me for breakfast with butter, jam and sour cream, however, they can also be served as savoury blini with smoked salmon, fresh dill, gherkins, and sour cream.

My mum also made these for us as kids with all sorts of savoury fillings of the kind you’d find at a crêperie in France. This recipe makes a batch of 10-12, however, baboushka would make a towering stack of several dozen. She never did things by halves!

Best Russian Pancakes Recipe for Blini in the Style of French Crêpes for Pancake Day

Buckwheat Pancakes Recipe for Blini with Smoked Salmon, Dill and Sour Cream

This Russian buckwheat pancakes recipe makes the blini with smoked salmon, dill, sour cream, and caviar that people typically think of when they think of blini. Instead of proper caviar, I’ve made a ‘caviar’ of gherkin and radish.

These are blini for those of us currently on a Prosecco rather than a Champagne budget! More like pikelets than pancakes, these cocktail size blini are perfect for snacking and entertaining.

They also make elegant bites for a brunch and are fantastic finger food. And while this is a savoury topping you could also spread these little pancakes with jam and cream.

Russian Buckwheat Pancakes Recipe for Blini with Smoked Salmon, Dill and Sour Cream

Ricotta Cheese Pancakes Recipe for Syrniki or Farmer’s Cheese Pancakes

My Russian ricotta cheese pancakes recipe makes syrniki or farmer’s cheese pancakes. Crunchy outside and fluffy within, these scrummy Russian pancakes are traditionally made with tvorog or farmer’s cheese.

‘Syr’ means cheese and syrniki have traditionally been made with a beloved Russian curd cheese called tvorog or farmer’s cheese. My baboushka translated it to English as ‘cream cheese’ when I was a child growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney.

In the Russian diaspora you’ll also find ricotta, cottage cheese, quark, and/or cream cheese used. You could also use any combination of all those white cheeses. All hard to find here, I’ve long made syrniki with ricotta and they’re just as delicious.

Make sure to serve your ricotta pancakes piping hot. We love to eat them with sour cream, jams or stewed or fresh fruit.

Russian Ricotta Cheese Pancakes Recipe for Syrniki or Farmer’s Cheese Pancakes

Potato Pancakes Recipe for Draniki or Deruny

This potato pancakes recipe for draniki (Russian) or deruny (Ukrainian) is another of our best pancake recipes. This potato pancakes recipe is super easy and versatile. Finely grate the potato and onion and use more rather than less flour for a light pancake similar in texture to a pikelet or the mini buckwheat blini.

Alternatively, you could grate larger pieces of potato, finely chop or slice your onion, and use less flour for texture and crunch and something more akin to a German kartoffelpuffer, Israeli latkes, Czech bramboraky, and American hash browns.

I use a kitchen grater with a storage container attached, but you can use any grater – from a simple box grater to a food processor with a grating or shredding attachment.

Russian Potato Pancakes Recipe for Draniki to Celebrate Maslenitsa or Pancake Week

Potato Latkes Recipe with Smoked Salmon (or Trout), Caviar, Sour Cream and Dill

While potato latkes are a beloved Jewish dish of Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine traditionally eaten for Hanukkah, this potato latkes recipe with smoked salmon, caviar, sour cream, and dill makes the crispy potato pancakes or potato fritters of my church-going, Russian-Ukrainian, Eastern Orthodox-Christian grandmother. I’ve been eating and making these for as long as I can remember, but it’s only recently I realised baba’s potato fritters recipe is essentially a potato latkes recipe.

These crispy potato fritters are fantastic served as part of a spread of Eastern European or Russian-Ukrainian dishes for a holiday feast. Although we’d happily serve these crispy fritters topped with smoked salmon or smoked trout as part of an Australian-style seafood focused holiday meal alongside prawn cocktails and a platter of chilled cooked prawns. They’d also be fabulous for weekend breakfast or brunch with glasses of bubbly.

If you enjoy things topped with smoked salmon and caviar, try these traditional Russian buckwheat pancakes with smoked salmon, sour cream, dill, and an ‘ikra’ (caviar) of gherkin and radish, classic blini with smoked salmon and caviar for a DIY blini spread, my elegant devilled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, and Terence’s scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, perfect for a holiday breakfast.

Potato Latkes Recipe with Smoked Salmon (or Trout), Caviar, Sour Cream and Dill

Blini with Smoked Salmon and Caviar Recipe for a DIY ‘Blinis’ Spread

My blini with smoked salmon and caviar recipe for a DIY blini spread makes for a fantastic weekend brunch or feast of zakuski or Russian starters. Use my buckwheat pancakes recipe to make your own blini or pancakes for this DIY spread – or use store-bought pikelets or mini pancakes for spontaneous gatherings, as I have for this one, and you’ll have this ‘blinis’ spread on the table in minutes.

One summer on the Moscow to St Petersburg train, my mum and I consumed so many blini with smoked salmon and caviar, each plate washed down with vodka shots, that the provodnitsa poyezda (проводница поезда), the female train attendant, astonished after calculating our bill, told us we’d broken a record: in all her years working that route she’d never seen people eat so many blini. We called the train ‘The Blini Express’.

This recipe for blini with smoked salmon, caviar, sour cream and dill makes blini in the style of those ‘train blini’ and it’s one of our best salmon recipes. In Russian, ‘blini’ are pancakes, pronounced ‘bli-NEE’, which is the plural, not ‘blinis’; the singular is ‘blin’, a pancake. While Russian pancakes take many forms, from small potato pancakes and ricotta pancakes to large French-style crepes, I love these cocktail blini, named as they’re perfect for cocktail parties and entertaining.

Blini with Smoked Salmon and Caviar Recipe for a DIY ‘Blinis’ Spread

Smoked Trout Blini with Caviar, Crème Fraîche, Cucumber, Radish and Dill

This smoked trout blini with caviar, crème fraîche, cucumber, radish and dill makes a variation on the traditional Russian blini or pancakes with smoked salmon and caviar. The blini are spread with cream cheese. Smoked trout is piled on top with a side of cucumber, radish and dill, followed by dollops of crème fraîche and caviar and more fresh dill.

There are few more quintessential Russian dishes than blini (pancakes). Smoked salmon, sour cream and caviar are traditional blini toppings and the blini recipes I’ve shared over the years feature those classic blini accompaniments – from my Russian buckwheat pancakes recipe for blini made from scratch (albeit with gherkin and radish ‘caviar’) to my easy DIY ‘train blini’ spread with store-bought mini-pancakes.

But I made a few tweaks to the festive blini brunch that I prepared for mum, who has Russian-Ukrainian heritage, that I wanted to share with you, as these blini would also make a special New Year’s Eve appetiser or finger food. Instead of smoked salmon I used smoked trout, which is more intense, richer and fishier in flavour – which is why I opted for the gentler crème fraîche over tangier sour cream, even though I adore the stuff.

I also added a refreshing ‘side’ of cucumber and radish, which I experimented with, serving as is and also quick pickling in vinegar, and garnishing with fresh dill. It was a nice contrast to the smoked trout, crème fraîche and salty caviar. It also made for prettier blini and we first eat with our eyes after all.