Apple Oladyi
Ingredients
2 servings
For the batter
- Ripe apples 3–4
- Egg 1
- Milk 100 ml (½ cup)
- Wheat flour up to 1½ cups (about 250 g)
- Sugar 2–3 tbsp (27–41 g)
- Baking powder ½ sachet (for 0.5 kg flour)
- Salt ¼ tsp
- Vanillin, cinnamon to taste
- Vegetable oil for frying
For serving
- Honey, mint, apple for serving
Step-by-step recipe
The wet base
Any oladyi, whether apple ones or fluffy milk pancakes, are made from a pourable batter. As a rule, it’s a very simple batter: flour, egg, milk and sugar. All the prep comes down to mixing the ingredients and frying small portions of batter in hot oil or in a dry pan. The pancakes turn out amazingly good when you stir chopped fruit or berries into the batter.
Get a few good, ripe, sweet apples ready.
Make the wet base. Crack the egg into a deep bowl and add half a cup of cold milk (100 ml). Add vanillin and cinnamon to taste and 2–3 tbsp sugar (27–41 g).
Apple pancakes can be as sweet as you like, within quite a wide range. You can add sugar to the batter even after mixing, just give it a little time to dissolve.
Mix the egg, milk, vanillin, cinnamon and sugar with a mixer or any other way. The wet base just needs to be smooth, not creamy or “whipped.” Wait a few minutes for the sugar to dissolve.
Flour and apples
It’s hard to say exactly how much flour you’ll need, since the juicy apples will add a good deal of liquid to the batter. Roughly, you’ll need up to 1½ cups of flour (250 g), about 250 g by weight.
Sift the flour and mix it with baking powder, using the amount on the package. I bought a sachet meant for 0.5 kg of flour, so I needed half a sachet. Add ¼ tsp fine salt to the flour.
Add 1 cup (130 g) of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly. Keep adding the flour in small portions, mixing all the while. You’re aiming for a batter as thick as very thick honey that still flows.
Peel and core the apples just before adding them to the batter. Peeled apples brown very quickly in the air, so don’t prepare them in advance. Coarsely grate the peeled apples or finely chop them with a knife, ideally a ceramic one. If the apples are very juicy, squeeze out some juice by hand.
Add the grated apples to the batter.
You can use more apples than the recipe says. The more apples, the tastier and juicier the pancakes.
Gently fold the apples into the batter and, if needed, add a little more flour so the pancake batter is fairly loose, like light sour cream. The batter should drip off a spoon.
Frying the oladyi
Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan and heat it. If the oil has a smell, heat it a little longer and the smell will go away. That said, refined oil is best for oladyi. Scoop up the batter with an ordinary tablespoon and drop a portion into the hot oil. One spoonful, one pancake. You’ll get perfectly sized round oladyi.
Turn the heat down to medium-low and fry without a lid. They take roughly 4–5 minutes per side. As soon as the underside is golden, flip them with a fork.
Lots of people insist you should use spatulas, tongs or special gadgets instead of a fork. I tried; it’s awkward, and the oil splatters everywhere. A fork is much handier and, most importantly, safer.
Fry until done. That’s plenty of time for the batter to cook through. Transfer the finished pancakes to a plate and let them cool for a few minutes.
Serving
Arrange the pancakes on a serving plate. Drizzle with honey, preferably a light one like acacia or linden. If the honey has crystallized, it’s fine to thin it with 1 tsp boiled water. Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint and thin apple slices.
If you like, dust the pancakes with powdered sugar, pour jam over them or top with any fresh fruit. Serve the oladyi hot, but not scalding.
If you like, you can use other fruit instead of apples. You can also stir finely chopped mint into the batter, which works especially well if you’re using kiwi. And any oladyi are delicious with sour cream, and simply top-notch with condensed milk.
Calories and macros
970 kcal
Serving ≈ 440 g
- Protein18 g8% of kcal
- Fat31 g30% of kcal
- Carbs143 g62% of kcal
100 g220 kcalProtein 4.2 gFat 6.9 gCarbs 32.5 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
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To Get It Right
How much flour
For oladyi, a heaped cup of flour (185 g) is more than 130 g; 1½ cups is up to 250 g or a bit less. It’s hard to give an exact amount of flour for a batter, since a lot depends on how juicy the apples are, so the range is wide. Go by thickness, not grams.
Which apples to use
Ripe, sweet apples are best for oladyi. With sweet-tart apples you’ll need closer to 3 tbsp sugar (41 g), so taste the batter.
To keep the apples from browning
Peel and grate the apples for oladyi at the last moment. If the batter has to wait, sprinkle the grated apples with lemon juice.
What to use instead of milk
In oladyi, you can swap the milk for the same amount of kefir or soured milk. The batter comes out a little fluffier, with a light tang. Water works too — the pancakes will be a little less tender.
Thin crepes with apples
If you want thin crepes, the apples go into a filling rather than the batter: dice them, cook in butter with sugar and cinnamon for 5–7 minutes until soft, and roll up in ready-made crepes.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Questions and answers
Why aren’t my apple oladyi fluffy?
Most often the batter is too thin: it should drip off a spoon but not spread across the pan. Other causes are too little baking powder or oil that isn’t hot enough.
Do apple oladyi need baking powder?
It’s best to use it: the pancakes come out fluffier. This recipe uses half a sachet meant for 0.5 kg of flour. If you make the batter with kefir, you can use ½ tsp baking soda (3 g) instead, since it reacts with the acidic kefir.
Can you add semolina to apple oladyi?
You can replace 2–3 tbsp of the flour (20–29 g) with semolina. Let the batter stand for 15–20 minutes so the semolina swells, otherwise it will be gritty.
Can you make apple oladyi with yeast?
You can, but it’s a different recipe: a yeast batter has to rise somewhere warm, and then you don’t need baking powder. The apples go into the risen batter just before frying.