Lemon Cheese Blintzes and Soufflé
Blintzes are a Jewish American staple for the Yom Kippur break-fast and Shavuot. Not sure how to make them? Scroll down to the bottom of the recipe for a video that shows how I make them and then takes it one step further by baking them up into an especially tasty blintz soufflé.
Ingredients
- Crepes
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- ¼ cup water
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup flour
- Pinch of salt
- Cheese Filling
- 1 7½-ounce package farmer cheese (if you can’t find farmer cheese, you can use ricotta cheese that has been drained overnight to be crumbly)
- 2 ounces cream cheese
- 1 egg
- 3–4 tablespoons sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Soufflé Custard
- 4 eggs
- 3 tablespoons whole milk or heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
Preparation
- Crepes: Add all batter ingredients into a blender and blend for 15 to 20 seconds. Refrigerate the batter for about an hour.
- To make the crepes, add a very small amount of butter into a small sized skillet over medium heat. When melted, evenly swirl it around the skillet, and then add ¼ cup of batter mix, swirling to coat the entire pan. Allow it to cook for a few seconds, then begin to gently push down along the sides of the crepe with a flexible spatula. When the crepe is barely browned on the bottom, about a minute and a half, carefully flip it over using the spatula and your fingers. Cook on the second side for 30 to 45 seconds, then slide it out onto a plate and continue to cook the rest of the batter. Cool crepes before filling.
- Cheese Filling: Combine all ingredients together in a bowl and mix well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
- Blintzes: Lay a crepe flat on your work surface. Place about 2 to 3 tablespoons of cheese filling on the center bottom third of the crepe, gently fold the bottom over the filling, fold the sides in and roll the whole blintz up like a burrito. At this point, you can serve individual blintzes by melting a pat of butter in a skillet over medium-low heat, adding blintzes one at a time and browning for about 4 minutes per side so that the filling cooks through. Serve with sour cream and fruit preserves. Or: place folded-up blintzes in a baking dish to make soufflé (see below). Repeat with remaining crepes.
- Soufflé: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix the ingredients well and pour over blintzes that have been arranged to fit in a baking dish.* Bake for 35 minutes, checking the custard in the center of the dish for doneness.
- *This recipe makes 8 blintzes and uses 6 blintzes in an 8-inch square pan for the soufflé. Double the whole recipe to use a 9-by-13-inch dish for more servings.
Emily Landsman
