Layered Blini Cake with Five Fillings
This layered blini cake comes out of festive home cooking, where thin unsweetened crepes were not rolled but stacked flat in a mold with a different filling between every tier — cut into it and you get a striped “cake” built from five separate dishes.
The batter is meant to be loose: 500 g of flour, about 4 cups, thinned with warm water to the consistency of pourable cream. A thick batter gives heavy pancakes and the whole thing turns into a stodgy pie. A thin crepe does two jobs at once — it soaks up the juices from the fillings and still holds its layer in place. Cook the crepes ahead; cooled ones stack far more neatly than warm ones.
One trick ties the fillings together: onion, sautéed separately for every single layer. That is what makes five different mixtures read as one dish instead of a random assortment. The cabbage is salted while still in the pan so it releases water and collapses; the mushrooms are boiled before frying, since fresh ones would weep straight down into the crepes. The potatoes are mashed with no milk — there is none on the list, and that is deliberate, because extra liquid is the enemy here.
Use a heavy-based pot and dust it with breadcrumbs; they absorb moisture and keep the bottom crepe from scorching. Ground chicken works in place of the beef, and you can build three tiers instead of five — the original recipe offers exactly that shortcut. Serve hot, sliced like a cake, with sauce spooned over and a little smetana (full-fat sour cream) stirred into it.
Part of Eastern European cuisine — 65 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Crepes
Thin the flour with warm water to the consistency of pourable sour cream, then add the egg, salt, sugar, and baking soda and mix well.Fry the crepes on a hot, oiled skillet, browning both sides.
Fillings
Layer 1: shred the cabbage, salt it, and saute with chopped onion in oil; hard-boil the egg, chop it, and stir it into the cabbage.Layer 2: saute the ground beef with chopped onion, salt, and pepper in oil.
Layer 3: boil the potatoes in salted water, drain, mash, and mix with sauteed onion.
Layer 4: boil the mushrooms, chop them, and fry with onion in oil.
Layer 5: chop the hard-boiled eggs, mix with sauteed onion, and season with salt and pepper.
Assembly and baking
Grease a heavy-bottomed pot with oil and dust it with breadcrumbs.Stack the crepes in layers, spreading a filling between each tier; the top layer should be a crepe.
Brush the top with oil and bake in the oven.
Slice the finished cake and serve drizzled with sauce; stir a little sour cream into the sauce if you like.
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