Tag Archives: DIY

Winter cake with red berries

Red berries and cheese make this cake a frequent guest on my table during the winter. 😀 It looks gorgeous and tastes delicious! Perfect for holiday season!

INGREDIENTS

100g butter, very soft at room temperature

150g Philadelphia cheese or smooth cottage cheese

120-140g sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

130g self-raising flour (or plain flour+ 1tsp baking powder)

2tsp mandarin or orange zest

1tsp lemon zest

200g mix of cranberries, redcurrents and raspberries, fresh or frozen (no need to defreeze)

50-70g flaked almonds

METHOD

Beat the cheese, butter and sugar together.

Add eggs to the batter mixture, one at a time, beating rapidly.

Stir in mandarin&lemon zests.

Sift the flour and mix to combine.

Finally, carefully stir the berries into the batter.

Sprinkle the cake with flaked almonds or your favorite nuts.

Bake in preheated oven 180C/360F during 35-40 minutes.

Bon appetit!

Adapted from this source.

Russian pryaniki – gignebread

Today is Christmas in Russia. I wish wonderful and magical day to all Orthodox Christians!

Pryaniki were ones of the favorite treats in Rus’ (old name of Russia). The name was given for it’s spicy aroma and taste. They are similar to gingerbread cookies, but often made more thick.

Pryanik was the symbol of holiday, because ingredients weren’t cheap and used daily. It’s been baked for the Christmas, Easter, weddings and birthdays. There were quite a lot ceremonies and traditions about pryaniki.

In 9^th century, first pryaniki were called “honey bread”, they were baked from rye flour with honey and berry juice, honey contained the half of all mixture. Later wild flowers and spices were added in a pastry.

In 7-8^th centuries, when exotic spices were brought from India and Middle East to Russia, pryanik was named “pryanik”. Spices for pryaniki were called “dry perfume”, among which black pepper, orange and lemon zest, mint, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, anise and clove were most used and favorite.

In 17-19^th centuries, baking of pryaniki was widely-spread craft. In every area people baked their special pryaniki according to traditional recipes; preparation’s secrets were passed on from one generation to another.

Ingridients:

For the pastry:

100-120 ml honey

300g flour

1 tbsp butter

1 egg

1/3 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp spice mix*

50ml water

1 tbsp cognac, brandy or vodka (optionally)

For the frosting:

1 egg white

150g icing sugar (powedered sugar)

*Spice mix:

1/3 tsp powdered coriander

1/3 tsp cinnamon

1/6 tsp nutmeg

a pinch of cardamom

a pinch of clove

a pinch of allspice

Honey and water heat in a pot (turn the heat off before the mixture begin to simmer). Take the pot away from the heat, add half of the flour (sifted) and mix intensively until smooth.

Cool the mixture until room temperature.

Then add the egg, cognac, spices, soda and the remaining sifted flour. Mix the pastry well during 15 minutes; it should be soft and tender.

Roll out the pastry in 5-6 mm/2 inch sheet and cut out any shape you like.

Bake in preheated 200C/400F oven for 15-18 minutes.

While the pryaniki are cooling, prepare the frosting. Beat well egg white, add sugar and beat again untill smooth. Put the ready frosting in a bag and decorate the pryaniki.

Enjoy with a cup of hot tea or a glass of milk. 🙂

Keep the pryaniki in a box, it can be stored during long time.

Apple pie with semolina

There are so many things I love about autumn!

Chose a day in our rush-life-time and stop! Stop and look around! You could see many bright colors, that golden fall has brought for you. Browny-orange and fiery red leaves are falling from trees. Gloomy and gray sky. Breeze in! Cooling and lightly burning air.

What an amazing day to bake a warm apple pie! 🙂

Ingredients:

Apples (pink lady) 3

Cottage cheese 100-150g (1/2-2/3 cups)

A handful of raisins, optionally

Butter 50-70g (4-5 Tbsp), melted

Semolina 150g (1 cup)

Flour 2Tbsp

Egg 1

Sugar 100g (1/2cup), I used brown

Cinnamon 1/2 tsp, optionally

Baking soda 1tsp

Bread crumbs or crushed nuts (hazelnuts, almonds) 1-2Tbsp, optionally

I forget to put soda in the pie mixture sometimes, so don’t worry if you’ve done the same, the pie will be nice and tasty anyway! 😉

Using fine semolina makes the pie more fluffy, however, I used that time coarse-grained and the pie was none the worse.;)

Feel free to change a quantity of the ingredients to suit your own taste.

Method:

Slice the apples, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Meanwhile, combine cottage cheese and egg. Add semolina, flour, soda and melted butter, mix.

Add apples, raisins and carefully combine.

Butter the baking pan, sprinkle some bread crumbles or crushed nuts, add the apple mixture.

Bake until golden color for 30-40 minutes. 200C/400F

Enjoy!!! 😀

Russian kasha

Kasha means porridge. One Russian proverb says “Bread and Porridge is our food”. A pot with a porridge and bread were the main food on a table many years back. A large varieties of cereals are produced in Russia, but the popular and loved one has been the buckweat.

According to old Russian tradition, during the wedding a bridegroom and a bride had to cook a porridge together. If they could cooked a good, tasty porridge that meant they could get on with each other. A porridge was cooked for many occasions like a wedding or Christmas feast, birth or funeral repast. Sometimes a feast was called ‘kasha’. Every hostess had a personal recipe of porridge, which she kept in a secret.

In Russian cuisine a porridge is divided into 3 groups by it’s consistency: liquid (eaten as a soup), oozy (usually for children) and crumbly (the tastiest one). The consistency depends on a quantity of water or milk, in which porridge was cooked.

Millet porridge with butter or lard added was the common meal for Russian labors, who had worked in fields. It’s can be eaten sweet (with sugar, honey, dried fruits) or savoury (with onion, garlic, mushrooms), as a main dish or garnish.

Moreover, millet is rich in calcium, B vitamins, iron, potassium, and contain no gluten.

We need:

pumpkin
millet – 1 cup
water – 1/2 cup
milk – 1 cup
a knob of butter
few dried apricots
raisins
sugar – 1Tbsp
a pinch of salt

Take a pumpkin.

Cut the lid and set aside. Clean all seeds out.

Put a knob of butter on the pumpkin bottom.

Wash millet thoroughly under running tab water. Mix with raisins and sliced dried apricots.

Put the cereal mixture in the pumpkin. Add a pinch of salt and some sugar to taste. Pour the milk and water, cover with the lid.

Bake for 1-2 hours.

Open the lid.

Tasty millet porridge in pumpkin pot is ready!

Serve with honey.

P.S. For 1 cup millet take 1 cup milk+1/2 cup water. Sub millet with rice.

P.P.S. Don’t throw away seeds. Sprinkle over some sea salt and smoked paprika. Add olive oil and bake on a baking paper along with the pumpkin.

Russian cold soup-Sveckolnik

Sveckolnik [sve’koljnik] – Russian summer cold soup, which goes really well during the summer heat. The name comes from the word “sveckla”, which denotes beetroot.

When AC and even hundreds of ice cream don’t help you against hot, this light soup refreshes and cools you.

The main ingredient is a raw beetroot, it’s high in vitamins, minerals and fiber that can effect the digestive system in a positive ways.

Raw beets are one of the top vegetables for nutritious raw eating, according to Bastyr University.

You can include this light soup in your balanced diet and it takes only few minutes to prepare it.

Ingredients:

beetroot – 2 small

cucumbers – 3-4

eggs – 1-2 per plate

a bunch of spring onion

a small bunch of dill

1 garlic clove

buttermilk 400 ml

water 200 ml

salt, sugar to taste

sour cream (optional)

Better to choose small young beets. And you can substitute raw beets with boiled, if you like.

Shred beets and cucumbers, put them in a deep plate.

Boil eggs for 10 minutes, let cool and cut them into chunks.

Slice green onions, put it in a cup and add some salt. With teaspoon begin to grind the salt into onions.

Add crushed garlic and mix.

Combine together beets, cucumbers, eggs, onions and dill. Add a pinch of sugar.

For the liquid part buttermilk is mixed with cold drinking water, the volume and thickness of it totally depends on your taste.

If you can find “salted lassi” (yougurt drink)-use it, no need to dilute with water; in Arabian countries it’s called “laban up”, in Russia – “tan”, “sivorotka” .

Pour the buttermilk over dry ingredients and mix well. Sprinkle some dill.