Syrniki (Breakfast Cheesecakes)

Syrniki are a Russian breakfast food. They're a bit like pancakes and a bit like mini cheesecakes but very different from either. They're composed almost entirely of "farmer's chees" with just enough flour and eggs to hold them together. A little sugar and a few raisins are added for sweetness, but they're neither as sweet nor as rich as a typical North American cheesecake.

It can be a bit tricky to get the consistency for the dough just right. The cheese needs to be soft and moldable without being excessively wet. (I think mine was probably still ever so slightly too wet when I made my syrniki.) Helen (the YouTuber who posted the recipe) suggests making your own cheese and pressing it for just a few minutes to achieve the idea flavour and texture.

Russian farmer's cheese is very similar to -- or possibly the same as, depending on who you ask -- quark. So if you don't feel like making your own cheese, quark would probably be the best alternative. Just make sure you get one of the drier varieties as some of them can be quite wet. Ricotta will also work as long as you're able to drain it and dry it out a bit. The problem is that many North American ricottas have stabilizers added that make them impossible to drain. If you can find a ricotta that hasn't been homogenized and stabilized, then that will likely also work well as long as you drain it and dry it out a bit first.

Syrniki

Slightly adapted from Helen Rennie

Ingredients (by mass)

• 350g well-drained/dried farmer's cheese or quark
• 2 large egg yolks + enough egg white to total 50g
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 45g sugar
• 35g flour¹
• 35g raisins²
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1 Tbsp. oil

Ingredients (by baker's percentages)

• 100% cheese
• 14% egg, 10% yolk + 4% white³
• vanilla extract, to taste
• 0.5% salt
• 13% sugar
• 10% flour
• 10% raisins
• 2:1 mix of butter:oil, for frying

Directions

1. Check the moisture content of your cheese. It should be soft and moldable. It should hold its shape and leave very little residue on your hands when manipulated. No residue means it's too dry. More than a tiny bit of residue means it's still too wet.
2. If the cheese is too wet, drain/press it some more. (Paper towels can help with drawing out excess moisture.) Cheese needs to be weighed after draining/drying/pressing for the recipe to be accurate.
3. If the cheese is not already cold, chill it now.
4. Once the cheese is nice and cold, add the egg yolks. Make sure you take note of their mass/weight!
5. Beat the egg whites for a few seconds to loosen them then, using a spoon, add enough whites to the mixture to make 50g of egg total. So your whites + yolks should add up to 50g. Or whites + yolks + cheese should add up to 400g, if you prefer.
6. If your cheese was overly dry, add an extra 15g of egg white.
7. Add the salt and the sugar and mix everything together with a fork or a potato masher.
8. Once ingredients have been thoroughly combined, stir in the flour.
9. Now stir in the raisins.
10. On a well-floured surface, turn out the dough and shape it into a log ~24cm (9.5") long. Be generous with the flour! You don't want to mix too much flour into the dough, but lots of flour on the outside makes for a good crust.
11. Cut the log into discs about 3cm thick.
12. Coat the top and bottom in flour, smooth the sides, and compress the discs slightly to form smooth, flour-coated pucks.
13. As you complete each one, place it on a well-floured baking sheet or paper while you complete the rest of the syrniki.
14. Melt the butter and oil over medium heat.
15. Reduce heat to low, add as many syrniki as will comfortably fit in the pan, cover, and cook, without disturbing, for ~5 minutes.
16. Uncover, flip the syrniki, wipe the condensation of the lid of the pan, and cover once more. Cook for another 5 minutes.
17. Cook any remaining syrniki in the same way, adding butter and oil to the pan as necessary.
18. Serve with sour cream and cherry jam (or pie filling) for a traditional option. I think crème fraîche and honey would also be excellent with these.

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¹ I used all-purpose flour to make my syrniki but, considering all the dire warnings about not overmixing, I think I'd probably make them with soft (cake/plain/standard) flour in the future. ^Back
2 I like sultanas or golden raisins for this, but use whatever kind of raisins you have/prefer. ^Back
3 Aim for as close to 10% egg yolks as possible. A little under or a little over is okay. You don't need to get into using fractional egg yolks. Once you've added as many yolks as you need, add egg whites to bring the total mass of egg (yolk + white) up to 14%. So, if you have 500g of cheese, you'd need 70g of egg. Add egg yolks until you get to ~50g (+/- 10g), then add egg whites to make up the remainder of the 70g needed. ^Back