Baking

Carrot rolls with orange marmalade

When the sun is shining almost every day, you’ve got an inexpressible feeling when it starts raining. You can breeze in fresh and cool air. All day has been gloomy, cool and windy. I made a huge mountain of these rolls early today. Then I wrapped up myself in a cozy blanket, filled a cup with my favorite Earl Grey tea, took few carrot rolls and sat outside to enjoy the sound of rain!

These freshly baked rolls with orange taste and cinnamon-ginger aroma added a real autumn-note to my day.

Carrot rolls with orange marmalade

Servings: for crowd
Time: 1hr
Difficulty: moderate
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You can make the dough one day ahead.

*The weight before grating.

**You can substitute orange marmalade with apricot or peach jam.

Ingredients

300g plain flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/3 tsp ginger powder

a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

1/3 fine salt

150g washed, cleaned carrots*, finely grated

150g butter, cold

100g sour cream (20% fat)

2-3 Tbsp white sugar (you can add more to suit your taste)

Filling

orange marmalade (with orange peel)**

dry-roasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

Preparation method

In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour and add spices. Cut butter into small cubes or grate it. Rub into the flour mixture until you get coarse crumbs. Mix in grated carrots.
In another bowl whisk sour cream with sugar, fold into batter. You should get a soft dough. You may add a bit more flour if needed.
Divide the dough into 2 parts and shape disks, cover each with a plastic wrap and put into the fridge for 30 minutes or overnight.
Take one part of the dough from the fridge and roll it into a 2mm-thick circle. Cut into triangles; the size is up to you. Spread 1-2 teaspoons of orange marmalade on each triangle, add a teaspoon of hazelnuts and roll into croissant shape. Repeat with the second part of the dough.
Arrange rolls on a lined baking tray. Sprinkle with more hazelnuts, if desired. Bake in preheated 190C oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden-brown.
Serve warm or cooled.

Enjoy!

Carrot rolls with marmalade and hazelnuts

Oatmeal Cookies with dates

There are thousands recipes of oatmeal cookies, I guess. Needless to say, I prefer homemade cookies to store-bought. Homemade is homemade, right? Plus I can vary the amount of sugar, thus you can feel that you’re eating oat cookies, not sugary cookies with oats! And of course, you can add your fav nuts or chocolate chips as much as you like. 😀 Personally, I don’t like chocolate chips in cookies. I add it sometimes too, but almost never do it; choco chips contain more sugar than pure chocolate; so if I deliberately reduce the sugar in a recipe why should I add more sugar but in another form.. I prefer roughly chopped dark chocolate, it’s healthier and adds much more flavour and taste! Add a small handful of dried berries or fruits for extra deliciousness! 🙂

So, it’s my fav oatmeal cookies recipe. What’s yours? 🙂

Oatmeal Cookies with dates

Servings: 20-22 cookies
Time: 20-30mins
Difficulty: easy
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Instead of dates you can add some black raisins or dried cherries.

Addition of chopped dark chocolate make cookies only better.

Ingredients

170g butter, soft at room temperature

35g brown sugar

35g golden caster sugar (or more brown sugar)

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g plain flour

50g fine oats

1/2 tsp fine salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2-1 tsp cinnamon

a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

200-220g oats

80-100g roasted walnuts, roughly chopped

6-8 large dates, stoned and chopped

Method

In a bowl, whisk flour with fine oats, salt, baking powder and spices.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with sugars until creamy about 2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla.
Add flour mixture into cookie batter and whisk/beat until combined.
Stir in oats, walnuts and dates.
Line 2 baking trays with parchment. Scoop in cookies, leaving the space between cookies about 4-5cm. With wet hand flatten the cookies slightly.
Bake in preheated 180C oven for 15 minutes or until light golden.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk!

Tsvetaeva Apple Pie

On this day, 8 of October, 123 years ago one of the greatest poetess in Russian literature – Marina Tsvetaeva drew the first breath.

She was born in the intelligent family: her father Ivan was a famous philologist, art critic and a professor of Fine Art in Moscow University and mother Maria was a pianist. Marina Tsvetaeva begun to wrote here first poetry being a 6 years old child, her poetry was written not only in Russian, but also in French and German languages. Her mother was terminally ill with tuberculosis and that time was believed that a change in climate could help to cure the disease, so young Marina spend quite a long time in Italy, Switzerland and Germany; lately she studied French literature in famous Sorbonne University.

Tsvetaeva published the very first poetry collection in 1910 on her own money..

Russian Civil war (1917-1922) was severe time for the poetess and here own family. She rejected Russian Revolution and wrote the cycle of poems about the war, glorifying those who fought against the communists. While here husband joined the White Army (anti-communist), she had no support and lived in starvation with her daughters.

In 1922 Marina Tsvetaeva left the Soviet Union and moved to Berlin, lately her family lived in Prague and finally settled in Paris. Unfortunately, living abroad didn’t made here life easier, they lived in poverty and were homesick for Russia. Tsvetaeva did whatever she could: began to write more prose because it made more money than poetry. Meanwhile, her husband and daughter were involved in NKVD (predecessor of KGB), and when French police interrogated Marina Tsvetaeva, she was shocked about news that her husband was a spy. Furthermore, police implicated here son in the murder of former Soviet defector.

Finally, in 1939 she returned to Russia..

Returning to the apple pie recipe and its name. It’s being said that such apple pie was served in the house of Marina Tsvetaeva and her sister Anastasia. Young Marina spent a lot of time with famous poets and writers on the literary evenings, and it’s been known that she served an apple pie to her visitors. I really want to believe that she really had an opportunity to participate and enjoy such evenings, where this tender and delicious apple pie was served. At least there was something striking and good in her life.

Tsvetaeva Apple Pie

Servings: 6-8
Time: 2hr
Difficulty: moderate
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You can make the dough one day ahead and keep it in the fridge.

Ingredients

Dough

150g butter, at room temperature

250g plain flour

4 tbsp sour cream, 30%

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp apple vinegar or lemon juice

Filling

3 sour medium apples

1/2 lemon, juice

250g sour cream, 30%

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract, optional

100g white sugar

2 tbsp plain flour

Method

For the dough, in a large bowl, add butter, sift the flour and mix until mixture resembles crumbs. Add sour cream. Dissolve soda in vinegar or lemon juice and pour in the dough mixture. Mix to combine. Knead a dough a bit, shape into a disk, cover in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Take the baking tin, grease it and line with baking paper. Roll the dough into the circle to fit the baking tin. Put the tin into the fridge.
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Peel (optional), core and thinly slice apples, sprinkle with lemon juice.
In a bowl, with electric or hand whisker beat sour cream with egg and sugar. Add vanilla, if using. Sift the flour. Whisk to combine.
Take the baking tin with dough from the fridge. Arrange apple slices. Pour over the sour cream mixture.
Bake for 20 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 180C and bake for 25 minutes more. If the top begins browning too much, cover it with a foil.
Allow the pie to cool completely in the baking tin. Then carefully transfer the pie onto the serving plate. Slice and serve with cup of hot tea.

The remaining pie cover with a foil and keep in the fridge up to 2 days. The pie will be even better on the next day, as the cream becomes thicker.

Sunday Breakfast: Syrniki with fresh blackcurrants

Syrniki are Russian cottage cheese pancakes, that are made thick and have a roundish shape. I love having them on breakfast, topped with a sweet condensed milk and some fresh or frozen berries. I already posted the recipe once (click here), today recipe is similar to the previous one but with a delightful touch: these syrniki were prepared by my mum during my summer holidays in Russia. 🙂 My suggestion was to add a special ingredient – fresh blackcurrants, which were picked up that day in parent’s garden. So, we mixed in lots of fresh and juicy blackcurrants. Blackcurrants have enough natural sweetness, and we didn’t put sugar at all.

If you haven’t still made syrniki you should immediately go to your kitchen and cook them! Really! They are so delicious, plus cottage cheese contains lots of calcium, which is great for bones.

Syrniki with fresh blackcurrants

Servings: 4-5
Difficulty: easy
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If using frozen blackcurrants do not defreeze them, add straight from the freezer.

Ingredients

600-700g tvorog/cottage cheese (I used 0% fat)

2 medium eggs

2-3 tbsp white sugar (or as much as you like), I didn’t put sugar this time

150-170g fresh blackcurrants

100g plain flour

icing sugar, for garnish, optional

some fresh blackcurrants, sour cream/sweet condensed milk, for serving

Method

In a large mixing bowl, mix cottage cheese with a folk. Add eggs and sugar if using, stir to combine.
Sift the flour into cottage cheese mixture, mix to combine. If the mixture is too wet, add a bit more flour.
Sprinkle fresh blackcurrants with flour, carefully fold into cottage cheese mixture.
Sprinkle working surface with flour. Take a tablespoon of the mixture and shape flat patties (approx 6cm diameter).
Arrange syrniki on a greased baking sheet. Bake in preheated 200C oven for 30 minutes or until golden.
You can also fry them. For that, in a large frying pan heat sunflower oil, add syrniki and fry for 2 minutes on each site.
Sprinkle with icing sugar, if desired. Serve warm with sour cream or sweet condensed milk and berries on side.

Enjoy!

Knyshy

One day I was watching numerous foody videos.. among those millions just one stuck in my head. Russian cook (don’t know his name) made small pies with potato filling, which he called knyshy. Pirogki with potato mash are one of my favourite, they always bring back memories about parents’ home ..kitchen, my mother is making pies, me and my sister are impatiently sitting and waiting while pirogki are baking in the oven.. Sweet time!

The difference between these pies and regular Russian pirogki is in the dough and shape, first ones are round, second are oval and usually made from yeast dough. I browse the Internet, and found not much information about these little pies. According to different sources, knyshy belong whether to old-Russian or Belarusian cuisine. In 19th century knyshy were widely-eaten pies among middle-class people, and the most popular filling was buckwheat kasha with fried onion and bacon.

It took me some time to shape them and make look like small barrels filled with tasty potato mash instead of rum (or whatever you imagine when hear barrel), but knyshy turned out beautifully and puffy, so they definitely worth all the hard work.

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Knyshy - little pies with potato filling

Servings: 16 pies
Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients

Dough:

1 egg

120ml sunflower oil

120ml warm water

1 tsp vinegar

400g plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Filling:

600-700g potatoes

1 large onion, chopped

1 tbsp oil+ 1 tsp butter for frying

1 tbsp butter

some chopped dill, optional

salt, pepper to taste

Egg wash

1 egg, beaten

Method

In a bowl whisk egg with oil, water and vinegar.
Sift flour with salt and baking powder into another large bowl.
Pour the egg mixture into the bowl with flour. Mix all ingredients together, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to rest for 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the filling. In a frying pan heat oil with butter, add onion and fry until lightly golden. Clean and peel potatoes, cut into medium chunks and boil until ready, drain. Using a potato masher blend butter into potatoes until soft. Mix in fried onion and dill, if using. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Divide the dough into two parts. On a lightly floured surface roll out one part into 30x40cm rectangle. Spread half of the filling near the edge of the longest rectangle side. Make the roll. Cut the roll into 8 pieces: 5cm width each.* Carefully seal the ‘hole’ on one side, shaping into a roundish form (like a small barrel), place pie sealed side down on a lined and greased baking sheet. Repeat with all pies.
Brush all pies with egg wash. Bake in preheated 190C oven for 40 minutes.

*You may cut the roll into smaller pieces to get more but small-sized pies.

Enjoy!