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Danielle Dolinsky sent me an interesting email a while back; a recipe for her Ukrainian syrniki, also known as tvorog pancakes. It’s her specialty and it was featured on the Martha Stewart Show (sounds soo soo dreamy!).
Here’s a link to her syrniki recipe and a step-by-step video from the show. I haven’t experimented with a store-bought cheese but I can tell you Mom’s homemade cheese creates a very soft dough; more delicate to handle but had amazing results.
Thank you Danielle for sharing your recipe. We’ve enjoyed your Ukrainian syrniki several times and I am currently craving them again.
Ingredients for Ukrainian Sirniki:
15 oz (about 2 cups) farmers cheese, homemade (aka Tvorog) or storebought
4 large eggs
3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus about 1/2 cup more for dredging
3 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp white vinegar
1 cup raisins
2-3 Tbsp extra light olive oil for each batch
Toppings:
Fresh fruit or jam, sour cream, powdered sugar; whatever you like!
How to Make Ukrainian Syrniki:
1. In a large bowl, mix together 15 oz of cheese, 4 eggs, 3/4 cup flour, 3 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp salt.
2. Place 1 tsp baking soda in a small bowl and add 1 tsp vinegar; give it a stir as it fizzes. Add this mixture to the cheese mix.
3. With a hand-held electric mixer, mix until uniform consistency. Stir in the raisins with a spoon. It will still have some little cheese clumps.
4. Heat a large non stick skillet over medium heat, add 2-3 Tbsp extra light olive oil.
5. Add 1/2 cup flour to a small bowl. Place a heaping tablespoon or flat ice cream scoop of the cheese mixture into the flour. Reach into the bowl and sprinkle flour over the top of the pancake. With Well-floured hands, remove excess flour by gently transferring the pancake from one hand to another.
6. Once the skillet and oil are hot, place patties directly into the skillet as you mold them. Saute until golden brown, about 3-4 minutes each side, flipping once during cooking.
7. Transfer to a plate and serve with your favorite toppings. I’m old school so I like sour cream, fruit and powdered sugar.
Are these pictures making you hungry? I’m gurgling in my gut… I better get started on another batch of cheese.
Ukrainian Syrniki Recipe (Cheese Pancakes)
Ingredients
- 15 oz about 2 cups farmers cheese, homemade or purchase 2 packages.
- 4 large eggs
- 3/4 cups all-purpose flour + 1/2 cup for dredging
- 3 Tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp white vinegar
- 1 cup raisins
- 2-3 Tbsp extra light olive oil for each batch
Toppings:
- Fresh fruit or jam, sour cream, powdered sugar; whatever you like!
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together cheese, eggs, 3/4 cup flour, sugar and salt.
- Place baking soda in a small bowl and add vinegar; give it a stir as it fizzes. Add this mixture to the cheese mix.
- With a hand-held electric mixer, mix until uniform consistency. Stir in the raisins with a spoon. It will still have some little cheese clumps.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat, add 2-3 Tbsp extra light olive oil.
- Add 1/2 cup flour to a small bowl. Place a heaping tablespoon of flat ice cream scoop of the cheese mixture into the flour. Reach into the bowl and sprinkle flour over the top of the pancake. With Well-floured hands, remove excess flour by gently transferring the pancake from one hand to another.
- Once the skillet and oil are hot, place patties directly into the skillet as you mold them. Saute until golden brown, about 3-4 minutes each side, flipping once during cooking.
- Transfer to a plate and serve with your favorite toppings like sour cream, fruit and powdered sugar.
Natasha Kravchuk
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
These were just okay to me. I had high hopes and went to the Russian market to buy the right cheese, but something about the ratios felt off. The pancakes were way too liquid originally (like one commenter said, too liquid to dredge) but when I added more flour and skpped the dredging altogether, they ended up tasting more or less like regular pancakes, not like the syrniki I had in Russia. No tang, not delicate. I will eat them but I don’t think I’ll try this recipe again. I’m sure there are lots of variations on this dish so maybe I just need to keep looking! Love your sauerkraut soup recipe, and will still try others, but this one was just not for me.
Hi Trisha, they are very delicate pancakes. I think these might need a video in the future to show the correct texture. The dredging is an important step to get the right result.
Way too much sugar
Tried making these with a pretty dry, crumbly farmers cheese (tvorog) and it ended up too soft and fell apart in the flour. What did I do wrong?
Hi Monica, they are fairly tender and delicate but shouldn’t fall apart. Did you make sure to add the correct amounts of flour and eggs? That helps to bind and hold the pancakes together.
Fantastic. Just what I was looking for. Thanks and all possible blessings.
I loved the recipe! I used blueberries and added vanilla. The only question I had, Syrniki came out a bit flat, would you know why?
Hi Katya, if they came out flat it’s possible your round was too big or you didn’t have enough batter for each round. Without being there its hard to say, but I hope this helps.
We were excited to try these as our kids were learning about Ukraine this week. I had never made anything like these before, but the instructions seemed easy enough. We followed everyone in the recipe, but the “dough” was super runny and it was near impossible to handle the super liquid dough for dreadging it and we ended up baking globs of dough with a bunch of flour around it. They still tasted fine and the kids like it, but I can’t imagine this is how this is supposed to go.. 😬
Hi Anna, what kind of cheese did you use and was the cheese loose when you put it in? Farmer cheese should be a dry and crumbly cheese but I’ve heard some people have purchased it when it seems too wet and that could definitely cause what you are describing.
Ours was definitely wet, so that was probably a big part of it then!
Way too many eggs, all I can taste is eggs and flour, and I cheese from Russian store. You don’t need this many eggs in this recipe. I’m sorry but I didn’t like it at all.
Hi Kate, normally I haven’t been able to taste egg in this recipe. Could your eggs have gone bad? Or maybe your cheese had an off aroma to it?
It is probably a good recipe if you use the farmer’s cheese, but I used 15 oz ricotta and 1.33 cup flour and it turned out fine, but not impressive. I ended up doing the pancakes rather than true “syrniki” which you roll in the flour. My dough was just too runny. I also have a sweet tooth, so I doubled the sugar amount. Overall, I should try making this with farmer’s cheese and see how this turns out.
HI Iryna, yes this recipe is written for farmer cheese and it sounds like that substitution isn’t quite the same result. I think you might love our Ricotta Pancakes for ricotta instead.
Great recipe, although I wish we could not use the eggs. I might try one with using a bit of banana instead of eggs. fyi, for those that need detailed nutritional values you can use this recipe calculator – https://nutriely.com/tools/recipe-builder
Great recipe! I used three eggs instead of four since my package of cheese was a bit less than the recipe called for – they turned out perfectly. Left out the raisins. Absolutely delicious and quick and easy to make! Will be making these again, for sure!
That’s wonderful, Lara! Thank you for sharing.
Too much egg and flour. Can’t even taste the cheese. This is not a good recipe but far.
HI Roman, I’m curious if it’s the type of cheese you are using. These are mostly cheese and if there was any more cheese in there, they would fall apart.
Natasha, I just tried your recipe and please do understand that I’ve been a fan of your recipes since 2018! However this is the first time that I feel this recipe has completely failed. It’s really too much egg and flour, and tastes nothing like all the syrniki I tried in Ukraine. I followed your recipe precisely, and I can’t taste the cheese at all, just flour and eggs… I used the same Ukrainian farmer’s cheese that I bought at a Ukrainian deli here in Canada.
Hi Jean, that does seem unusual since main ingredient here is Farmer cheese and there is very little flour. Is it possible your flour might have gone rancid or could there have been a bad egg in there? I’m not sure why else that would be. If you used any less flour or egg, they would fall apart.