When it comes to festive breakfasts, it’s hard to beat a blintz. A soft white crepe wrapped around a cheesy filling, fried golden and drizzled with syrup…I’m making myself hungry just writing about it. Blintzes were one of the foods my husband wooed me with (along with breakfast burritos, chocolate pudding and curry (no, not all at once)) and I’d say they worked quite well.

There are a lot of directions you can go with blintzes. Sometimes we put fruit in, or you could make a different flavor of crepe to wrap around (buckwheat, perhaps?), but they’re really great made plain, so everyone can put whatever topping on they want. You could even do them savory: mushrooms seem like an obvious thing to try.

When Jon made these last weekend, we had some leftover raspberry syrup on hand, so I used that. Any kind of berry sauce would be good, of course, and maple syrup is traditional. Some people put sour cream on as well, but it’s hardly necessary.

We had a couple left over, so I ate them cold with a glass of red wine later that day. That was pretty darn good, too.

Cheese Blintzes for two

adapted from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen

Crepes

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 scant cup milk
• 1 1/3 Tbsp oil or melted butter
• more butter for frying

Filling (unless you can get your blintzes really full, this makes a little too much)

• 1 lb ricotta
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 3 Tbsp flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

Whisk up the crepe ingredients, or toss them in a blender. Heat a bit of butter in a crepe pan or small nonstick skillet, and ladle in just enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan. Cook until the pancake just begins to pull away from the sides, then turn it cooked side up onto a towel or piece of parchment. You are not cooking both sides of the pancake at this time! Continue to make one-sided crepes, preferably while someone else begins filling blintzes.

Beat together the filling ingredients. To make a blintz, scoop about a tablespoon of filling onto one side of a crepe. Fold over the closest edge, then fold down the sides, then roll it the rest of the way up. You’re making as tight a package as possible, so the filling won’t leak out during cooking. Repeat with all the pancakes as they come off the skillet. Blintzes can be held at this point for later frying – you can even freeze them.

To finish, melt butter in the pan again, and add as many blintzes as will fit. Fry until they are golden brown on all sides, and hot through. Eat right away with whatever toppings you like. Or eat cold later, I won’t tell anyone.