Sweet cheese latkes
By Tali Simon | December 22, 2011
I think it’s funny that these things are called latkes.
They’re so much more like traditional breakfast pancakes.
What’s a good name for Chanukah pancakes? Pancake-akuhs? Chanu-cakes? Um. Let’s just stick with sweet cheese latkes, shall we?
Last night we had the traditional white potato variety. They were great, but I wasn’t completely satisfied and I want to experiment some more before sharing a recipe here.
With only eights days of Chanukah, though, I didn’t want to make the same kind of latke two days in a row. I needed to try something entirely different. Like…a sweet latke. This recipe uses cottage cheese (I’ve also seen variations with ricotta), and it produces pretty little pancakes that are light, sweet without being too sweet, and so very good fresh from the pan.
The props!
I replaced one of the tablespoons of sugar with an equal amount of vanilla sugar — not essential, but I love the boost it gives to the otherwise ordinary sweetness.
We had ours with a sprinkling of cinnamon and powdered sugar (oh yeah, and the maple syrup), but I bet they’d be wonderful with a touch of butter.
Or you could take my husband’s serving suggestion of choice: Stick a piece of chocolate gelt inside several layers and smile sneakily.
Ingredients Directions 1. Place eggs, milk, cottage cheese, flour, baking powder, salt, sugars and vanilla in a bowl and mix until smooth. 2. Cover bottom of a frying pan with oil and heat until a droplet of water sizzles upon contact. Drop batter by the spoonful into hot oil, frying about three latkes at a time. Fry until golden brown on both sides, keeping a careful eye on them so they don’t burn. (They will also burn if there isn’t enough oil in the pan, so you might need to add a bit when you flip them over.) 3. Drain excess oil by placing latkes on paper towels as they come out of the pan. Serve warm.
Tweaked from Spice & Spirit, via JTA
Yield: 20-22 latkes
6 Comments
MR on December 22, 2011 at 11:50 pm.
I think that halachah defines a latke as any batter containing eggs that is later fried, so you’re good with these. Happy Chanukah!
Malka on December 4, 2012 at 12:10 pm.
Read The Shiksa’s post about cheese latkes. Apparently, cheese latkes were the traditional original version (dairy + fried) and once it moved over to Ashkenazi land it became potatoes, like everything else!!
Tali Simon on December 4, 2012 at 1:24 pm.
Cool, hadn’t heard that before. Makes so much sense.
Yiska Ben Avraham on December 10, 2012 at 10:23 am.
Yum! Cheap ingredients I have on hand, a way to use vanilla sugar, and by the way the batter smells great! Is there anythign else that could be done with it or its tweaked version?
Tali Simon on December 10, 2012 at 12:33 pm.
Make them into sandwiches? Spread with peanut butter, cream cheese, chocolate spread…I’m pretty sure that counts as lunch.
Rachel B. on December 11, 2012 at 9:31 am.
Made these for breakfast. the whole fam loved them, from baby to abba! Really, really good. Thanks for the recipe and thinking of you, hope you’re doing well!