Syrniki (Cottage Cheese Pancakes)

Name: The Best Syrniki Recipe: Fluffy Cottage Cheese Pancakes
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Cuisine: Ukrainian cuisine
Ingredients: Cottage cheese, homemade or store-bought 500 g; Egg 1; Sugar 85 g (3–4 tbsp); Vanillin 1 g; Flour 85 g (3 heaped tbsp), plus more for dusting; Raisins 60 g; Butter 50–70 g; Sour cream to taste; Jam, honey, cream, condensed milk to taste

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40 mins

Syrniki taste like childhood. Like Duchess pear soda, fruit gingerbread and Kis-Kis toffees. Don’t remember them? There was so much more…

My parents would send me to my grandma’s village for the holidays. Milk, fresh cottage cheese, fresh air and games of Durak from early morning until you could no longer tell the suits apart. I don’t like milk, and the fresh air just came free with the card games.

As for cottage cheese, you can’t eat much of it plain. Grandma served it with sour cream and with honey. But the best way to eat it was as syrniki with sour cream.

Wikipedia says that “some cooks believe that real tender syrniki are made without flour.”

Who knows. Maybe so. It all depends on the cottage cheese.

The tastiest syrniki are made from the freshest homemade cottage cheese and fried in real butter in a skillet. The perfect breakfast from childhood.

Ingredients

2 servings

Cottage cheese, homemade or store-bought 500 g
Egg 1
Sugar 85 g (3–4 tbsp)
Vanillin 1 g
Flour 85 g (3 heaped tbsp), plus more for dusting
Raisins 60 g
Butter 50–70 g

Sour cream to taste
Jam, honey, cream, condensed milk to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Cheese dough

Above all, good syrniki need fresh cottage cheese; choose a firm, “dry” one.

Rinse 60 g of raisins under running water, pour boiling water over them and set aside.

Mash 500 g of cottage cheese with a fork. Add 3–4 heaped tablespoons of sugar (85 g), vanillin (1 g) and the egg. You can use vanilla sugar instead of vanillin. I don’t add salt, but you can, to taste. Mash very thoroughly until smooth.
Taste the mixture. Add more sugar or vanillin if needed. Mash again.
Drain the raisins, pat them dry with a paper towel and add to the cheese mixture.
Add 3 heaped tablespoons of flour (85 g) and mix until smooth. You’ll get a cheese dough. If the cottage cheese wasn’t very firm, add a little more flour.

Shaping the syrniki

Turn the cheese mixture out onto a cutting board generously dusted with flour.
Without kneading, shape the dough into a kind of “log” 6–7 cm in diameter. Dust it with flour on all sides.

Cut the dough with a sharp knife into equal pieces — as many as will fit in your skillet.
If you like, you can roll balls by hand and press each one into flour, but that’s not very convenient and takes longer.
Shape the syrniki with your hands, dust them generously with flour and put them on a plate.

Frying

Put the butter into a well-heated skillet. As soon as it melts, add all the syrniki and fry over medium heat until golden brown.
Then turn the syrniki over, cover and cook over low heat until done — that way they’re guaranteed to cook through.
Transfer to a plate and top with sour cream.
I recommend serving syrniki with sour cream, but of course you can add jam, preserves or condensed milk.
Other syrniki recipes:
- Fluffy syrniki with semolina and apple — semolina makes the mixture firmer, so the syrniki hold their shape
- Vanilla syrniki with orange zest — made with low-fat cottage cheese, for those watching calories
- Syrniki with raisins — with tangerine zest and brandy-soaked raisins
- Syrniki with sour cream — simple syrniki from homemade cottage cheese

Calories and macros

1055 kcal

Serving ≈ 360 g

Protein51 g19% of kcal
Fat50 g42% of kcal
Carbs101 g38% of kcal

100 g296 kcalProtein 14.1 gFat 13.9 gCarbs 28.4 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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To Get It Right

Which cottage cheese to use

The best syrniki come from dry, crumbly farmers’ market cottage cheese. Store-bought cottage cheese is often closer to a soft cheese spread — it needs more flour, and the syrniki turn out heavier. If the cheese is wet and won’t hold its shape without flour, semolina helps: syrniki with semolina won’t fall apart in the skillet.

So they don’t turn out flat

Look for the sweet spot between cheese and flour: as soon as you can taste dough in the syrniki, they turn into flat, doughy patties. Ideally, as much cheese and as little flour as possible. Don’t knead the mixture — just shape it into a log and slice.

So they cook through without burning

If the syrniki burn outside but stay raw inside, the heat is too high — turn it down by half. Cook the first side over medium heat for about 3–4 minutes until golden, then turn and cook covered over low heat for another 5–7 minutes.

Which fat to fry in

Butter tastes best. If you use sunflower oil, make it refined and odorless: unrefined oil makes the syrniki taste of sunflower seeds.

In the oven

Put the shaped, floured syrniki on a parchment-lined baking sheet, drizzle with melted butter and bake at 180 °C for 20–25 minutes, turning halfway.

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Questions and answers

How much flour for 500 g of cottage cheese?

85 g — 3 heaped tablespoons, plus flour for dusting. If the cheese isn’t very firm, you’ll need a little more, but the less flour, the more tender the syrniki.

Why are syrniki burnt outside and raw inside?

The heat is too high. Turn it down by half, and after flipping, cook them covered over low heat — that way they’re guaranteed to cook through.

Can I make syrniki without flour?

Only with very dry, firm cottage cheese. If the cheese is wet, syrniki without flour will fall apart — then it’s better to add semolina.

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