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Jewish Cheese Blintzes for Shavuot

May 29, 2025 by Laura 12 Comments

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Cheese blintzes are traditional for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. but you definitely don’t have to be Jewish to love them. They’re easy to make and freeze just fine. You can buy them frozen, but this DIY version is better. Trust me.

Jewish cheese blintzes for Shavuot with fruit and sour cream

Growing up, my family didn’t celebrate Shavuot and I certainly did not know what foods it was customary to eat on that holiday. But I always loved cheese blintzes. Lightly fried in butter and topped with sour cream, they are a delight. I always looked forward to them. 

Of course, in my Mad Men childhood, they always came frozen from a grocery store. At the time, that seemed quite natural. I ate grilled American cheese sandwiches on white bread and thought TV dinners were just fine. So it never occurred to me that homemade cheese blintzes would be a million times better than the packaged variety. 

Somewhere between high school and college, I found enlightenment. By the time I had my own apartment (in college), I had begun making cheese blintzes. The proof is a single sheet of looseleaf paper on which I wrote the ingredients for those blintzes. No directions, just ingredients. I don’t know how many times I made them, but I do remember the joys of making the wrappers, filling, folding, and frying them.

Though I hadn’t cooked blintzes in decades, in 2018 I updated my recipe and made them again. 

blintz in front with fresh fruit and sour cream behind

Shavuot is a spring holiday known as the “Festival of the Giving of the Torah.”  It celebrates the time when Moses received the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. It’s also addition a harvest holiday. Along with Sukkot and Passover, it is one of the Shalosh Regalim or Three Pilgrimage Festivals. In ancient days, Jews brought harvest offerings to the Temple in Jerusalem at Shavuot.  Over time, different traditions evolved. Now at Shavuot some celebrate by going to all-night Torah study sessions, while others mark the holiday with parades, pageants, and other celebrations featuring nature and farming.  

There are a few explanations for how dairy foods became associated with Shavuot. The one I am most familiar with is that the Song of Songs compares Torah to milk and honey. Ashkenazic Jews (those who trace their families to Eastern Europe) traditionally eat blintzes, kugel, and cheesecake in a nod to that “milk and honey” phrase. 

Cheese blintzes are the Ashkenazic Jewish equivalent of sweet, filled crepes. But there are differences. The outside pancake is slightly thicker than a crepe. Folding the pancake around a sweet cheese filling, we gently fry them until golden on the outside and warm on the inside. I like to serve cheese blintzes with fruit, either fresh or in a compote, with sour cream below. 

Jewish blintzes for Shavuot, ready to eat. | Mother Would Know

This ingredients in this recipe are only slightly modified from the one I made in college. I only made one change and one addition. The change is a move from farmer’s or dry cottage cheese to a combination of small curd cottage cheese and ricotta. That switch, which I made because I didn’t want to waste the ricotta in my fridge, turns out to be fortuitous. My local grocery doesn’t carry farmer’s or dry cottage cheese – maybe it’s out of fashion? The addition is the grated lemon zest. Because I love citrus and it adds a lovely note to the flavor of the filling.

When you read the recipe you’ll note that it has three eggs, not just two as pictured. My bad – I lost count and had already begun to cook the blintzes when I realized that my photo was one egg short. Sorry.

Ingredients for cheese blintzes
Filling for cheese blintzes.
blintz batter
folding blintz
Pancakes for blintzes cooling on a plate
Starting to fry cheese blintzes.
Frying second side of blintzes.
Jewish cheese blintzes for Shavuot with fruit and sour cream
3.34 from 3 votes
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Jewish Cheese Blintzes for Shavuot

Cheese blintzes are a delicious brunch, light dinner, or addition to your buffet table. They are slightly sweet but not dessert. 

Course Brunch
Cuisine Jewish
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 8 blintzes
Author Laura

Ingredients

Pancakes

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup water

Filling

  • 8 ounces small curd cottage cheese
  • 8 ounces ricotta cheese
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 & 1/2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
  • 1 pinch kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

For Frying

  • 3+ tablespoons unsalted butter

Instructions

Pancakes

  1. Whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder. Set aside. Mix together the eggs and 1 cup water. 

  2. Using a strainer or sifter, add the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Add a few tablespoons more water (2-4) to get batter to be loose but not watery. I added 4 tablespoons more water, for a total of 1 & 1/4 cups water. Let the batter sit while you prepare the filling. 

Filling

  1. Mix together the filling ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. 

Putting together the blintzes

  1. Wipe an 8-inch pan, preferably non-stick, with a small dab of butter and pre-heat the pan. Put about 1/4 cup of batter in the pan, swirl it around to cover the entire pan with a light coating of batter, and cook the pancake until the bottom is golden. Slide the pancake onto a plate (without cooking the other side), add a bit more butter to the pan if necessary and repeat. 

  2. Separate each pancake with a small piece of waxed paper or parchment. Let the pancakes cool until you can easily handle them. 

  3. Once the pancakes have cooled, put one, cooked side up, on a plate or cutting board. Add 1/4 cup of cheese filling. Fold one side over on the cheese filling. 

  4. Fold the opposite side, then fold the top and bottom, so that the pancake resembles an envelope. It can be square or rectangular, depending on whether you center the cheese as a large spoonful or make it a longer rectangle. It doesn’t matter. 

  5. Add 1-2 tablespoons of butter to a pan. (You can use the same pan you made the pancakes in.) Once the butter is melted and the pan is heated, add blintzes with the folded sides down. Do not crowd them. Gently heat until the bottom is golden brown. 

  6. Then turn the blintzes on the other side and continue cooking under a medium-low flame until they brown on the second side. You may want to cover the pan for a minute or two to assure that the inside filling is well heated. 

  7. Serve immediately with sour cream and fruit. 

Recipe Notes

For making the pancakes, you can use a crepe pan if you have one, but it’s not necessary. A frying pan or skillet with sloping sides works fine, especially if it is non-stick. 

Don’t worry if your pancakes aren’t perfect at the edges. The pancakes are folded up, so none of the edges show. 

Jewish cheese blintzes for Shavuot, with sour cream and fruit

This post was first done in 2018. I updated the text, but the recipes and photos are from that original post.

Filed Under: Archives, Breakfast & Brunch, Recipes Tagged With: blintzes, cottage cheese, crepes, Jewish food, ricotta cheese, sour cream

« Charoset Recipe Roundup for Passover

Comments

  1. K Sullivan says

    May 1, 2018 at 4:18 am

    I used to use farmers cheese to make my blintz too. I read somewhere that farmers cheese is no longer available. Too bad because I really liked it.

    Reply
    • Laura says

      May 4, 2018 at 11:45 am

      K Sullivan, I looked in a couple of places too. But the ricotta and small curd cottage cheese mixture comes pretty close. Hope you try these – they’re delicious.

      Reply
    • Rita says

      December 8, 2019 at 11:29 am

      3 stars
      Hi K
      The supermarkets these days only carry what they can make max profits on so farmer cheese sadly does not fit into their production lines. You can however make farmers cheese at home and it is so easy to make.
      Look up a recipe on line. I don’t recall how I made mine exactly last year but I think I just places 2 T of vinegar into whole milk, let it curdle, and then scooped out and separated the curds from the whey, strained it and uvula you have cheese. So so easy.

      Reply
      • Laura says

        December 9, 2019 at 4:49 pm

        Thanks for the ideas on DIY farmer cheese.

        Reply
      • K.C. says

        September 12, 2020 at 9:53 pm

        Voilà?

        Reply
  2. 2pots2cook says

    May 16, 2018 at 8:20 am

    5 stars
    So beautiful 🙂 Ricotta is at hand over here ! Thank you so much !

    Reply
    • Laura says

      May 29, 2018 at 2:54 pm

      2pots2cook, So glad you like the blintzes. They’re truly delicious.

      Reply
  3. P.tuvim says

    July 14, 2020 at 8:22 pm

    My personal favorite is left over mashed potatoes into blinzits.

    Reply
    • Laura says

      July 28, 2020 at 6:09 pm

      P.tuvim, I’ll have to try that:)

      Reply
  4. Linda says

    September 18, 2020 at 12:54 pm

    2 stars
    This recipe will not work without liquid such as water, milk, or both mixed together. I don’t feel eggs can substitute for liquid….you’d have a scrambled egg tasting crepe. I would reduce eggs and offer more liquid, vanilla, sugar….

    Reply
    • Laura says

      September 20, 2020 at 2:48 pm

      There is a cup of water called for in the recipe. It was in the directions but not in the list of ingredients because it is water, which, in traditional recipes, is not included as an ingredient. Just to be sure, I consulted with a friend who is an excellent recipe editor and she suggested adding it to the ingredients, so I have. Sorry if I confused you.

      Reply

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