Bezyaitstvo's Revenge: Crepe Success

(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

Because once I just knew I could salvage the frankenblin recipe I tried this morning, I went ahead and tweaked the proportions, made another batch, and got very different (much improved) results.

Original recipe:
1/2 cup skim milk
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

What I did (approximately):
2/3 cup milk
1 3/4 cup water
2.5 tablespoons butter, melted (1/4 cup is 4)
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Basically all I did was decrease the butter and increase the other liquids, especially the water, and man, what a difference! The batter was much runnier, which it's supposed to be for a thin blin-crepe-thing, and in fact if I did it again I might put in even more water. They still cooked fast and flipped quickly, and I still think I overgreased the pan-- I have this bizarre fear that they're going to stick to the pan and tear apart, even though that hasn't even come close to happening once. Because the batter is thinner it spreads out in the pan very nicely, and I've also perfected my ladling wrist so that they come out pretty damn circular every time (seriously, use a ladle, not a spoon-- huge difference, both in shape and how they cook).

Because they were thinner they were much more flexible, like actual blini, so I was able to fold them over and make nice little sandwiches for my father and I. Same deal as last time-- slather in horseradish, put on some swiss and turkey or roast beef, cook in pan till cheese is gooey. MUCH better-- the overpowering stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth quality is totally gone, and the blin frames its contents instead of dominating it.

so I still have to work on aesthetics with these, Constantinople wasn't built in a day

In my opinion it wasn't "chewy", which is a complaint I've heard about eggless pancake-things, and while I haven't tried these with eggs yet, I'm not sure why I'd bother (when I get around to making real buckwheat blini, of course, that's another story).

My long suffering father is used to me inflicting the results of my kitchen experiments on him, and because he is kind he always pretends to like what I plate up, but I could tell he actually liked these-- when I told him there were more in the kitchen he didn't even wait for me to leave to get up to fetch more. Cheap, fun, quick, simple, delicious, very customizable-- what more could you want? Definitely going in my regular rotation.