Russian Buckwheat Blini (Oladyi) Recipe | Russian Mini Pancakes (2024)

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Russian blini come in all shapes and sizes, thin, thick, yeast, no yeast. I personally love these thick yeast buckwheat blini which are called oladyi. I like to make these buckwheat oladyi small and bite size. Top them with some sour cream and salmon and you’ve got a delicious snack.

While looking through my list of countries I still need bake something for, Russia caught my eye and buckwheat blini/oladyi were something that just kept popping in my mind to make. So I went out to find the best oladyi recipe I could find and I came across this recipe on the Guardian for blini. I loved the result so much I barely changed a thing to make the perfect oladyi for me.

Making these buckwheat oladyi isn’t difficult, but you will need some patience, the batter takes some time to make.

How To Make Buckwheat Oladyi

First you’ll need to get your ingredients together, strong white flour, buckwheat flour, milk, eggs, sour cream, yeast and salt. (The full list of ingredients including measurements can be found in the recipe card below).

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites into separate bowls. (Please forgive the fact that I completely forgot the take a picture of this…)

Pour the milk into a saucepan and bring to a boil, once is starts to boil, immediately turn off the heat and take the pan off the heat. Don’t keep on boiling the milk, you want it to just reach that boiling point just so it’s warm, but not boiling hot.

Next, add the yeast.

And while mixing in the yeast, start to add the egg yolks.

At this point you’ll realize that mixing in the egg yolks with a spatula isn’t a big success so you switch to using a whisk… Whisk the milk mixture thoroughly till the eggs are fully incorporated.

Next, add in the sour cream.

And using your awesome whisk, mix it into the rest of the mixture. Stir well until the sour cream is fully incorporated.

Now it’s time to add your flours and salt to a separate bowl and mix them all up.

Now slowly pour in the milk mixture into the flour mixture and keep whisking while you pour in the batter.

You should end up with a smooth batter like this. Cover the bowl with some clingfilm and set aside in a warm place for about an hour.

In the mean time you can whip up the egg whites. If you haven’t done so already, add the egg whites to a big bowl.

Use an electric whisk to whip up the egg whites till they’ve got soft peaks. If you feel like working out your arm you can also whisk with a normal whisk.

After the batter has been sitting for an hour you can see that the batter has risen slightly. Using a spatula, gently fold in the egg white a little bit at a time into the batter.

Make sure the egg whites are incorporated into the batter completely. Once done, cover with clingfilm again and set aside again for 2 hours.

After 2 hours the batter is done and it’s time to start cooking! Put a bit of butter into a pan.

Add about a tablespoon of batter to the pan to create small buckwheat oldayi.

When the batter is dry at the top and you see little air bubbles form at the top, it’s time to turn the oladyi over for another minute or so. When the oladyi’s are brown at both sides they’re done.

And there you have it, a lovely plate full of buckwheat oladyi’s!

Serve them warm with some sour cream or cream cheese, topped with caviar or smoked salmon. Or any other topping of your choosing.

Original recipe: The Guardian.

Last update: 7 May 2019

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