My sugar recipes
January 7th, 2012 in Desserts by Julia Volhina This cake looked unusual even for me when I saw it first time: doesn’t it resemble a bunch of firewood covered with a snow to you?
This recipe is Yuriy’s mom speciality dessert and it often appears on the table during family celebrations. Yuriy’s mom preserves pitted sour cherries in their own juices under sugar each season, so there are always plenty of them ready for use.
If you don’t have sour cherries preserved in such way – you can always go with pitted cherry kompot like I did, but in this case add a bit of sugar to the dough, or cake will not be sweet enough.
I would want to tell you that this cake is easy and fast to do, but I can’t. It took me quite some time to make dough, prepare “firewood” sticks and then assemble the cake; but that is probably because I cooked it first time in my life.
After cake is assembled allow some time for layers to soak in sour cream frosting to get soft: leave it in cool place (but not fridge) at least over night (depending on how liquid sour cream is it may take longer). It is good idea to prepare cake at least a day before you are planning to serve it.
Tags: cake, dessert, flour, fruits, margarine, sour cherry, sour cream, sugar, ukrainian
December 17th, 2011 in Main Dish Recipes, No-meat by Julia Volhina Mannaya Kasha is one of foods associated for russian people with their childhood. When I was little I was always told it is rich on nutrients and required for healthy kid growth – every kid knew that to grow strong and healthy they need to finish up their plate with semolina porridge.
Just as a note: while researching for proper translation for this recipe, I stumbled on information that semolina porridge isn’t recommended for kids younger than 3 years (which was new to me) as it contains high amount of gluten and also phytin. But because it also has a lot of proteins and high content of vitamins E and B1 it is very good for kids after 3 year old who have no gluten intolerance.
While cooking it is important to stir mannaya kasha all the time (I use whisk for this and it helps a lot), or you will get clots and no kid likes them in their mannaya kasha.
Tags: breakfast, butter, kid food, lunch, milk, no meat, russian, semolina flour, soft food, sugar, ukrainian
December 3rd, 2011 in Beverage Recipes, Non-alcoholic by Julia Volhina Kvass (kvas, quass) is probably a bit of unusual drink to this part of the globe.
Indeed, if you read ingredients list: dried rye bread, water, sugar and yeast – it probably will not strike you as something delicious. However this is one of soft drinks which is, according to Wikipedia, popular in Eastern Europe countries, especially Russia, since ancient times.
It is not hard to prepare kvass at home: you just need 2 big cooking pots, a funnel, cheese cloth, rye bread (which can be a bit of challenge to find) and about 3 days. Any type of rye bread will work.
I recently discovered good borodinsky bread in nearby european store, we liked it a lot and now buying pretty often. I dice the bread leftovers and heels and dry them for 10-15 mins in oven; that way I always have dried rye bread for the next patch of kvass ready to go when I need it (and I also don’t need to throw bread out).
Prepared kvass can be stored bottled in fridge; serve it as soft drink or use to prepare okroshka soup.
Tags: bread, drink, russian, sugar, yeast
August 27th, 2011 in Main Dish Recipes, No-meat by Julia Volhina I didn’t believe my eyes when I saw sour cherries (pitted!) in the Andersons grocery store. It doesn’t happen that often to me here, in US. So I couldn’t simply leave that store without my portion of sour cherries…
Of course, we enjoyed them plain with a bit of sugar, and also made some cherries with whipped cream dessert (didn’t make any pictures of this one to post a recipe, shame on me), however most of sour cherries went to ukrainian sour cherry dumplings – “varenyky z vyshniamy”, and for this one we made plenty of pictures.
With mentioned amount of ingredients you will get about 50-60 dumplings. Most probably you will not need to cook all of them right away – so just freeze remaining potion of dumplings for later use (first put wooden board with dumplings to the fridge until dumplings are frozen, then move them to a ziploc bag and store frozen). Frozen dumplings can be boiled right before serving, just like you usually do it.
Tags: dough, dumplings, egg, flour, fruits, milk, no meat, sour cherry, stuffed, sugar, ukrainian
August 13th, 2011 in Desserts by Julia Volhina This cake is similar to the cheese cakes so popular in west part of the globe. However this one is made from quark cheese (fresh farmers cheese), not from the cream cheese.
It is very popular dessert treat in West Ukraine. It is often being made with raisins, however I don’t like raisins, so I am doing it without any filling. Just add them if you like.
During the baking this cake will rise in the oven, and then it will fall down a bit while colling down. That i s ok, just important not to open oven while baking or cooling.
To make up for a bit uneven shape, you can cut uneven sides off before serving it.
Tags: baked, breakfast, butter, dessert, egg, egg whites, egg yolks, fresh cheese, lemon juice, semolina flour, sugar, ukrainian
June 11th, 2011 in Desserts by Julia Volhina I am used to call this kind of braid sweet bread Hala (Хала in russian), however when I was preparing to write this recipe and did a bit of research to make sure I get name right in english, I discovered that real Challah (Hala) doesn’t contain dairy.
Considering this recipe have butter and milk and eggs in it, I didn’t risk to call in challah. After all it is a sweet braid yeast based sourdough bread.
It tastes good by itself and even better with a cup of yogurt or cultured milk (kefir or buttermilk).
Tags: baking, bread, butter, dessert, egg, egg yolks, flour, milk, poppy seeds, sugar, yeast
March 26th, 2011 in Desserts by Julia Volhina This pastry is very popular in countries of ex-USSR. The shape is what gave them their russian name – “hvorost” – which means “dry wood used to make a fire”. Ukrainian name – “khrustyky” – describes texture – which it very crisp.
I had troubles trying to figure out what english name to use for this dish. Even if there is an equivalent of it in cuisine of some english speaking country, I don’t know about it.
So, feel free to let me know if you have some ideas in this regard 
Tags: dessert, egg yolks, flour, kefir, oil, pastry, russian, sugar, ukrainian
