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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.
I didn’t make sirniki by your recipes that true, but they will still taste different then Russian or Ukrainian sirniki. You can still call them Natasha Sirniki, not Ukrainian. Why don’t you try my daughter favorite we call it ” Lazy vareniki”
I ate syrniki in Russia and I got in love for it.
I just made it and it turns out to be totally different from the one I ate.
It is also really really heavy. I don’t know if I made something wrong, but I am sad… I want so much to eat this again.
The appearence of it is perfect, but tastes totally wrong 🙁
mine: https://instagram.com/p/8J5yfVxAbY/?taken-by=monica.galafassi
These are normally very light and fluffy and they go down easy :). It sounds like something went wrong. Did you change anything un the recipe? Did you use Farmers cheese (it’s tempting to substitute, but it doesn’t work well with other wet cheeses). It’s hard to say what could have gone wrong without being there. Did you use any different ingredients? At what point did you recipe look different from what I have in the pictures?
I have a similar recipe, but with the option of using манна крупа instead of flour. I think this makes the dough stiffer, without taking away from the taste of the cheese.
Thank you for sharing! I haven’t tried that. I actually don’t have much experience with манна крупа. What else do you use it for?
Loved the sirniki!
That’s awesome! Thanks Inna 🙂
I just came upon your site and I love all your Ukranian Russian recipes. I wanted to let you know, I make these all the time and grew up with my momachka and babushka making these little treats for me. My favorite dish growing up. I also used to add sugar to the sour cream when I was little but know to make it fancy I add maple syrup or honey to the sour cream to make a nice topping. This is great for when you have left over Ricotta and cottage cheese in the fridge. I have used all kinds of cottage cheese and ricotta. I even used low fat and fat free versions with whole wheat flour. I just drain the liquid out and add extra flour to make the consistency right. I also sometimes just mix with a fork to not over beat the ingredients. I have made these with dried cranberries and they are delicious. I love making these. They are inexpensive , so easy and satisfying. I can’t wait to try your recipes. Thanks for giving us your delicious recipes.
Do you have any recipes for Honey cake (medivik) I would love to make it. Since my grandmother died and i do not remember the recipe. She would make it for us all the time in a bundt cake dish. My father loved it. I would love to surprise him and make it for him. It’s one of the few deserts he would eat because it was not so sweet. That was a favorite the cake and crepes she would make all the time. I still can not perfect the crepe. The way she made them always perfect.
Thanks
Diana
Now I really want to make syrniki with ricotta and cottage cheese! Do you mix the ricotta and cottage cheese after draining the cottage cheese? Do you try to drain the ricotta in cheese cloth also? I’ve wondered if there was a good substitute that worked since we don’t always make or have farmers cheese, so we don’t get to enjoy these as often as we’d like. Thanks again! P.S. Have you tried the crepes I have posted? I have 2 kinds of honey cake. This is my favorite: https://natashaskitchen.com/2013/12/26/prune-honey-cake-recipe/ This is a layered one (also very good): https://natashaskitchen.com/2014/03/09/8-layer-honey-cake-recipe-medovik/
These look so delicious! What kind of farmer’s cheese did you use?
It was my homemade version. There’s a link in the recipe above 🙂
After hearing about these from a Ukrainian friend of mine, I found your recipe and made them this morning for the first time. Wow… so great! Thank you for the easy and tasty recipe! I used no-salt-added farmer cheese and separated two of the eggs (to only use the whites from those two) and everything turned out great.
I’m so happy you enjoyed them! We love them too. I always make them when I make cheese 🙂
Natasha. I just love sirniki, they are my favorite childhood food. But I have made them only a handful of times trying different recipes, they were either too runny or had too much flour that I could taste it. All these reviews are so postitive! So, I don’t know why mine did not turn out. I just tried making them and for some reason after mixing my tvorog with hand mixer it became very runny, almost like the consistancy of the dough for nalisniki. I could not shape them. So, I just took a small skillet and poured it to make large American-sized pancakes. I did beat on lowest and very short time until it just mixed all the ingredients. Although the lowest on that mixer still seemed too high. What do you think if I try beating the egg and sugar separately, adding flour, mixing again, and then folding it into the tvorog with spoon?
You may have had a more moist tvorog cheese. Was it homemade and was it pretty well drained (not wet like cottage cheese?). It is a pretty delicate dough though, but it definitely should be thicker than nalesniki dough. I hope that helps 🙂
Спасибо Наташа! Я съел эти вкусные блины на украинских фестивалях здесь, в Чешской Республике, попробуйте сами!
I made these this morning for the first time ever! They turned out perfect and delish! Thank you! 🙂
Awesome, thank you for a good report Lilly :).
Would cottage cheese work for these?
I haven’t tried with cottage cheese but I think it would have to be drained really well if using cottage cheese since farmers cheese is quite a bit drier
They look lovely! I’m making them this weekend after I buy some farmer’s cheese.
Enjoy!! 🙂 These are such a treat!
perfect timing! I was just talking to my dad and they were making these for breakfast… i was so jealous! then i see this post, i’ll just have to ‘zakotat rykova” and make them myself!
They are so easy to make and truly delicious! I hope you love the recipe!
Will ricotta cheese work for this?
Ricotta is probably going to make these too thin. They are already super soft and tender when you are dredging them with flour. I think ricotta would make them too soft and make it very difficult to dredge.
mmm.. JUST finished making these and my 7-year old just finished eating them.. =) “Mom! these are the best EVER!” -were his exact words =)
i didn’t put any raisins in. He doesn’t like raisins at all and i used coconut oil to fry them in. They were delicious! Thank you, Natasha!
Awww, that’s so sweet 🙂 Thanks for sharing that with me.
Natasha, I am gluten intolerant and made your recipe with all purpose gluten free flower. Not sure if its what is making the syrniki more runny but they don’t hold their shape like yours and others I’ve had at my inlaws. Do you have any suggestions? My husband still likes them but I want them to look and hold together like my mother inlaws 🙂
Thank you!
I don’t have experience with gluten-free flour. I think it probably ha to do with tE flour if that’s the only thing you’ve done differently. Does your family make them with gluten free flour?
What do I do when my syrniki has lumps of tvorog. Do I need to blend or mash the tvorog before adding it?
If that has hard clumps, mash them to soften up the cheese.
Forgot to rate it
Thank you so much Lena 🙂 I’m so glad you loved the recipe!
Made these last weekend…loved, loved, loved them! This recipe is better than my mom’s 😉 Thank you. I’ll try to make my own tvorog for the next batch. I’ve made a few recipes from your website, so far loved every one if them. My favorite part is the ingredients and measurements for us, living in U.S.
Thank you again!
Do you strain the farmer’s cheese beforehand or does the flour absorb the cheese’s liquid?
Did you buy one thy is juicier? If there is visible liquid to strain, you should strain.