Pancakes are a Russian national dish that has come to our homes from time immemorial. What varieties of this culinary delight our ancestors did not come up with. In each house, the housewife had her own special recipe, passed down from generation to generation. Of course, it cannot be denied that other nations also have similar flour products. But the most famous have become thin and fragrant, so reminiscent of the gentle spring sun, Russian pancakes. They are served in many restaurants around the world with caviar and sour cream, honey and cottage cheese.

Thin, golden flour cakes are not only a delicious snack, but also one of the most economical meals of their kind. To make pancakes, you need a small amount of flour because the main component is liquid.

Milk is most often used, but it is possible to bake pancakes with both water and kefir. The result is a liquid dough that easily spreads over a heated frying pan, which makes it possible to bake very thin cakes with holes. To make more pancakes, because you can never have too many of them, the ingredients include yeast. According to a borrowed tradition from Europe, they can be replaced with soda, but this is alien to Russian national cuisine.

It is Russian pancakes that are famous for their special consistency, which makes it possible to prepare soft, fluffy, spongy and fluffy culinary masterpieces that look like a light sponge. The method of preparation, regardless of the contents of the dough, is always the same, and to achieve the desired effect, you have to try very hard. But the process of consumption can be different for everyone, differing in variety. Ready-made pancakes can be dipped in melted butter or honey, greased with sour cream or jam, filled with caviar or minced meat, and each of these methods brings constant pleasure to a true gourmet. The original Russian dish was served with many additives, but it was especially common to use it with cottage cheese in various variations. The pancakes intended for filling were baked very thin, but for dipping, on the contrary, they were fluffy.

Classic recipe for Russian pancakes

The classic recipe involves making a dough that must rise at least twice to make soft, airy and spongy pancakes. Modern housewives prefer a faster cooking method and do not add yeast. They can be successfully replaced with soda, which also gives the desired effect. Very often even this baking powder is not used. Then the pancakes turn out thin and full of holes, which is a special chic and indicates the skill of the hostess.

To make truly classic pancakes, you need to know a few basic things.

• The dough should be liquid enough so that it spreads freely in a thin layer over the pan. But the proportions must be strictly observed, otherwise they will be “lumpy”.
• Pancakes must be fried on both sides. Housewives achieve special skill when they turn them over by tossing them in a frying pan. Although this is not the point, the main thing is to learn how to flip the pancakes carefully without damaging the integrity.
• When frying, you need to know when to stop and avoid burning.

Pancakes are a Russian national dish, which has features unique to them in the preparation of the dough.

• First of all, you need to make a dough, which is made using yeast. It must be done in advance.
• In order for the dough to stand and rise, you need to leave it for six hours. The third part of the products goes into it, all the rest are added after. The dough must include the following ingredients: flour, it can be corn, wheat, buckwheat; vegetable oil, salt and sugar. Everything is mixed using milk, you can add eggs to the mixture, but after that you must let the dough sit again.
• The content of liquid and flour should be even, but the proportions can be adjusted as cooking progresses.

In ancient times in Rus' it was believed that a girl who knew how to bake pancakes was ready to become a wife and mother. This speaks of the high skill of the housewife preparing this dish. By the way, male chefs also cook this dish perfectly.

Preparing the dough has several subtleties that every housewife should know.

• Yeast is needed in the dough for sour pancakes. They must be fresh and in sufficient quantity. The important point is that there should not be too many of them, as this can ruin the taste of the dish.
• After adding each ingredient, the dough must be mixed very thoroughly, eliminating lumps and bringing it to a homogeneous mass.
• Some recipes call for scalding the dough with boiled milk. It should be about fifty degrees. To make the dough loose, you can add a mixture of proteins and cream. These subtleties help improve the taste of the dish.

Baking Russian pancakes

A very important point in cooking pancakes is the choice of frying pan. The best option would be medium-sized cast iron cookware.

Baking pancakes is not difficult, but it takes practice. First, you need to pour oil into the pan. There shouldn’t be too much of it, otherwise the pancakes will be thick and uneven, which will ruin their appearance. With a small amount of oil, the dish may burn, which is also unacceptable. You need to stick to the golden mean. To do this, do not pour oil into a frying pan, but spread it with a bunch of feathers or an onion cut in half; you can also use half a raw potato. The dough should spread unhindered in the pan, then the pancake will turn out smooth and thin.

To keep the pancakes soft and fluffy, they should not be overdried. When it is browned on one side, brush it with oil and quickly turn it over. This moment should not be missed so as not to harm the taste of the dish.

Types of pancakes according to ingredients used and cooking methods

There are different types of pancakes, it depends on what kind of flour is used as the base and how the dough is made. Depending on this, they have different names. Semolina pancakes are made with the addition of semolina. They turn out very soft and crumbly. Accordingly, the dough for buckwheat, rye and wheat pancakes is made from the corresponding cereals. You can mix different flours in one dish, then they acquire a special taste and aroma. Pancakes made from different grains differ not only in taste, but also in color.

There are also different recipes for preparing the dough. For example, you can prepare custard pancakes or yeast-free ones.

Each family has its own traditions of eating the dish. Pancakes can be dipped in honey, sour cream, sugar or melted butter. They can be stuffed with salted fish, caviar, eggs and herbs, as well as minced meat or vegetables. The recipe for pancakes with seasoning is especially tasty and complex. In the classic version, the first leaves of green sorrel, finely chopped eggs, onions, cottage cheese or cheese were used as a filling for such a dish.

Pancake pie used to be a very popular dish. To prepare it you need to select the filling and bake several pancakes. Everything is assembled on a baking sheet in layers, the sides are coated with dough and put into the oven for five to ten minutes. It turns out to be a kind of pie with filling.

There is no doubt that pancakes are the Russian national dish, because for centuries the people have so lovingly collected recipes and preserved the traditions of their preparation. No other dish compares to their warmth and unique taste.

Pancakes began to be prepared in Rus' more than ten centuries ago. They are considered one of the favorite and traditional Russian dishes. Wide Maslenitsa weeks are celebrated on a grand scale in our country, and pancakes are baked, apparently or invisibly - for every taste.

The most common types

• wheat
• rye;
• pumpkin;
• yeast;
• yeast-free;
• pancakes cooked on sourdough.

Being a signature and traditional dish of Russian cuisine, they enjoy unprecedented popularity in other countries of the world. In every nation, pancakes are baked according to certain recipes using a variety of fillings, which are a reflection of certain taste preferences and traditions of countries and peoples of the world.

They are prepared using various types of flour, milk, yeast, beer and soda, served with sour cream, jam, jam, honey, and seafood. And the variety of fillings allows you to pamper yourself and your loved ones with a new culinary masterpiece every time.

Main fillings

• berry (with blackberries, currants, cherries);
• fruit (with apples, peaches, banana, pineapple);
• vegetable (with cabbage, zucchini);
• mushroom;
• curd;
• meat;
• chocolate.

Some unusual cooking recipes

Cooking with sparkling water

When using this recipe, the pancakes turn out tender, thin and delicate.

Prepare the necessary products: 4 tablespoons of sugar, 1.5 cups of mineral water (carbonated), 3.5 cups of flour, 3 eggs, 0.5 liters of milk, soda on the tip of a knife (quenched in vinegar), salt to taste, several tablespoons spoons of sunflower oil.

To prepare pancakes, you need to add the specified amount of salt and melted butter to the eggs. Beat all this with a mixer until you obtain a foamy white mass, into which you need to pour one glass of sparkling water and half the amount of milk. Beat again with a mixer until the lumps disappear. Then you need to pour the remaining amount of sparkling water into the mixture. You can bake in a heated frying pan treated with oil or a piece of lard.

There are a variety of fillings for these pancakes to suit your taste and choice.

cooking with kefir

To bake pancakes using kefir you will need: a liter of low-fat kefir, 2 eggs, 3 tablespoons of sugar, a little soda and salt, 300 grams of flour, 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil, 50 grams of potato starch.

You need to mix kefir with eggs, sugar and salt. Stir the mixture and add flour, starch and soda, quenched with vinegar. Beat the contents with a mixer until the lumps are broken and the dough becomes homogeneous. Add vegetable oil to the finished dough and stir. Bake pancakes in a greased frying pan.

You can try delicious pancakes in the café-bakery "Zhivut-Live".

Pancakes are a traditional delicacy of the Russian people, one of the most beloved and revered dishes, both in the times of ancient Rus' and now. They occupied a worthy place on the table of every housewife, and are considered one of the very first flour dishes that appeared in the diet of our ancestors around the 9th century AD.

Many countries in the world have their own varieties of this ancient flour flatbread, in Ancient Egypt it was sour, in America it was called pancake, its diameter is smaller than our pancakes and they are thicker, in Asia they made thin unleavened pancakes, which were eaten instead of bread, the ancient Chinese made pancakes made from rice flour with the addition of tea powder, seafood and onions. Each country has its own history of creating certain dishes and is proud of its traditions and customs.

For the Russian people, pancakes were and are one of the favorite delicacies; we are ready to eat them day and night, enjoying the taste and aroma, as well as the variety of fillings, which can be either sweet (berries, jam, jam, cottage cheese) or not. sweet (meat, mushroom, fish, with red and black caviar).

The history of the origin of pancakes in Rus'

The history of the origin of this dish has several versions. Some historians claim that the word “pancake” comes from the Slavic “mlin” - grind. According to this version, pancakes appeared after the ancient Slavs learned to grind flour and add water to it from the dough to bake fluffy and rosy pancakes. There is another version of the origin of this dish, when oatmeal jelly, popular at that time, was accidentally forgotten in the oven, it burned a little, and a tasty, appetizing crust appeared on it, and it itself turned into a flat cake. This was the first pancake, which everyone really liked.

In ancient, even pagan times, pancakes were a ritual of treating the spirits of ancestors; people believed that they could treat their souls, cajole them so that they would contribute to a good harvest for the coming year. This is how Maslenitsa appeared, which at first was not a holiday, but a pagan ritual tradition. They baked a lot of pancakes and fed them to the poor, the poor and wanderers, considering them intermediaries between two worlds.

Also, according to some historians, pancakes were a sacrificial type of bread, which, before the baptism of Rus', was baked in the shape of a circle as a symbol of worship of the ancient Slavic supreme god Perun and the sun god Yarilo, bringing as a gift to the gods for their protection and intercession.

How they baked pancakes in Rus'

Each housewife in Rus' had her own recipe for baking pancakes, which was kept secret and passed down from mother to daughter. To make the pancakes fluffy and tasty, the dough (the pancakes were yeast-based) was mixed late at night, away from prying eyes.

Mostly buckwheat flour was added, which gave the pancakes a slightly sourish, pleasant taste; the basis of the liquid in the dough was yeast, milk and water; the finished pancakes were fluffy, golden brown and a little loose.

Pancakes were baked in an oven, always on birch logs, using cast iron frying pans carefully calcined with salt, greased with a piece of unsalted lard. The filling for pancakes could be very different from meat and mushrooms, to cottage cheese, herring, and even porridge (buckwheat, semolina and wheat).

Traditions of baking pancakes for the holidays

Previously, pancakes were baked everywhere throughout the year, serving as both an everyday and a festive dish. Since the 19th century, pancakes have become the main symbol of the bright, cheerful winter holiday of Maslenitsa, personifying the ruddy spring sun, they participated in the farewell of winter and the meeting of the Red Spring.

Maslenitsa week:

First day Holy Week Monday, called “Meeting”, housewives begin to bake festive pancakes, snow slides begin to roll out, a scarecrow is installed - a symbol of the past winter.

On the second day, Tuesday or “Zigrig” large-scale celebrations begin, people go to visit each other, tasting the most important dish of the holiday - ruddy, aromatic and satisfying pancakes with a wide variety of fillings.

Third day Wednesday or “Gourmand”. On this day, tables both on the street and at home were supposed to be bursting with treats; it was believed that the more pancakes a person ate in a whole day, the better!

Thursday - "Range" involved riding in troikas, fist fights, various games, carnivals, and of course intense eating of the main dish - delicious pancakes in the heat.

Friday - "Mother-in-law's Day", mothers-in-law bake their most delicious pancakes for guests and their beloved son-in-law.

Saturday - “Sister-in-Law’s Gatherings”, girls gathered for cheerful girls' get-togethers or went to visit relatives, again treating themselves to soft, rosy, incredibly filling and tasty pancakes.

Sunday "Forgiveness Day", burned an effigy of winter, asked each other for forgiveness for all insults, welcoming the onset of a new, spring life and celebrating its arrival by rejoicing, having fun and of course eating huge quantities of the main holiday dish - Russian pancakes.

Pancakes from all over the world

Pancakes, as you know, are baked not only in Russia, although it often seems to us that this is our national dish. However, for example, the French also believe that pancakes are the “horse” of cuisine. Americans who love fast food also appreciate food prepared with their own hands (although the recipe for their pancakes, like everything they create in order to save money, is as simple as possible).
So what other pancakes are there?

Let's start with the Russians, the traditional ones.

Russian pancakes

Ingredients:
(products for 20 - 25 pancakes)
wheat flour - 600 g
granulated sugar - 1 tbsp. l.
butter - 5 tsp.
eggs - 1 pc.
yeast - 25 g
salt - 1 tsp.
milk - 4 cups
olive oil - 3-4 tbsp. l.

Recipe
To prepare pancakes according to this recipe, you need to heat three glasses of milk to 30-35°, dissolve the yeast in it, add 1/2 tbsp. spoons of granulated sugar, salt, yolk and melted butter, mix and add 300 g of flour. Knead the dough. Cover the bowl with the dough with a towel and place it in a warm place to ferment. After 1 1/2 - 2 hours, when the volume of the dough has doubled, dilute it with the remaining milk, heated to a temperature of 50°, add the rest of the flour and sugar, gradually pour in the well-beaten egg white. Knead the dough again and let it rise. The dough should ferment for about 3 hours in total.
Grease a frying pan with a thin layer of oil and heat it until the smoke disappears. Using a pouring spoon, scoop out the batter and pour it into the pan. When the bottom side of the pancake is browned, dip a brush in oil, grease the top side and turn the pancake over. When the second side of the pancake is browned, grease the top side with oil again and transfer the pancake to a pan covered with a towel. Do not stir the dough during baking.

Scottish pancakes

Ingredients:
oat flakes - 100 g
flour - 2 tbsp. spoons
grated cheese (Cheddar is best) - 3 tbsp. spoons
yolk - 1 pc.
milk - 3 tbsp. spoons
butter - 1 tbsp. spoon
soda
salt

Recipe
Mix oatmeal, flour, cheese, salt, soda, butter. Add milk immediately. Knead the dough and roll it into a thin layer. Using a saucer, cut out large circles and cut each into 4 pieces. Grease the edges with yolk. Bake pancakes in the oven.
Cheese can be replaced with sugar, then you get sweet pancakes. You can add 1 tbsp to the dough. a spoonful of flour above the norm, but the pancakes will be tough. You can add ground nuts or poppy seeds for a sweet option.

French pancakes

Ingredients:
flour - 100 g
a pinch of salt
large egg - 1
milk - 300 ml
vegetable oil - 1 tbsp. l.

Recipe
The main thing here is to observe the cooking ritual.
Place the flour and salt in a large dish and make a well in the center.
Break an egg into this cavity, then add the egg yolk and pour a little milk there.
Whisk together the egg and milk, then gradually stir in the flour from the edges to the center. Add milk until you reach a dough the consistency of half-whipped cream. Beat the dough until smooth, then mix with vegetable oil.
Stir in the remaining milk - the dough should now have the consistency of liquid cream. Cover the dish and leave for 30 minutes. - this will give the finished dough airiness.
Heat the pan. When it is hot, lightly grease it with a small amount of vegetable oil and pour in 25-30 ml of whipped dough. Tilt the pan so that the batter spreads evenly across the bottom. Place on the fire and fry for 1 minute.
Slide a spatula (wide knife) under the pancake, flip it over and fry the other side until golden brown. Transfer the finished pancake to a plate. Repeat the procedure with the remaining dough.

American style pancakes

Ingredients:
(serving for approximately 16-18 pieces)
flour - 2 cups
milk - 1.5 cups
baking powder - 1
sugar - 4 spoons
vegetable oil - 8 tablespoons
egg - 2
a pinch of salt

Recipe
Dilute the dough (the consistency of thin sour cream). Bake like regular pancakes in a dry frying pan. You can't wrap anything in them - they're quite fluffy. Serve with sour cream, honey, jam.

Indian pancakes

Ingredients:
flour - 600 g
eggs - 10 pcs
butter - 200 g
sugar - 4 tbsp. spoon
milk - 1 glass
cinnamon to taste
orange zest to taste

Recipe
Place the yolks in a saucepan, add flour and butter, grind well and dilute with milk. Proteins are introduced into the dough, cinnamon and orange zest are removed. Baked in a frying pan. The finished pancakes are placed on a plate, sprinkled with sugar and placed in the oven.