Chocolate Cherry and Caramel Bars / Шоколадно-Вишнево-Карамельные Пирожные

These chocolate caramel and cherry bars have crunchy layers of cookie like dough and three types of frosting, which are caramel, sour-sweet cherry filling and a rich layer of chocolate with bits of almonds on top. Quite festive, yet very easy to make.
I do recommend that you give this recipe a try.

2 cups flour
270g butter
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 eggs
10g baking powder
drop of lemon juice

Beat together butter and sugar, adding eggs, flour and baking powder with a drop of lemon juice. Divide the dough into 3 parts and chill for 30 minutes in the fridge.

200g butter
400g dulce de leche or caramel
pinch of salt
2tb.s. cocoa powder
1t.s. espresso powder

Beat everything together  and chill.

350g cherry jam

If the jam has chunks of fruit in it, using hand blender mix it until it is smooth.

Preheat oven to 180C. Using your fingers spread one part of dough evenly over 23x23 square baking form, covered with baking paper.  Bake until golden, approximately 10 minutes. Let it cool of on a wire rack.  Repeat with other parts of dough.

Spread jam and then caramel filling over one layer of dough. Cover with the other and spread two frostings again, repeat with a third layer. Place the cake into the fridge for a while.

Melt 160g dark chocolate with 1 tb.s. olive oil. Take the cake out of the fridge. Sprinkle the cake on top with chunks of toasted almonds. Pour your chocolate over it. Let the cake set in the fridge.

It's better to serve it 24 hours later.

Enjoy!

Mixed Spice Yoghurt Bars / Пряные Йогуртовые Пирожные

These tender, light and delicious yoghurt bars can easily be adapted for different seasons, depending on the flavour you choose. Instead of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves....you could just use vanilla and decorate with fresh berries for a nice  melt in your mouth summer dessert.

For the dough

60g melted butter

4 eggs, separated

125g sugar

vanilla

pinch of salt

100g flour

70g cornflour

10g baking powder

150g small almond cookies

150g small meringue cookies

Wisk egg whites until stiff, adding sugar gradually. Add salt and vanilla and beat in yolks, flour and cornflour. Pour melted (and cooled) butter.

Line baking tray (30x20cm) with baking paper, pour half of the batter into it and bake at 175C during 15 minutes, until done. Cool on a wire rack. Repeat with another part of batter, but before baking it, arrange almond cookies on top of the batter (to add some crunch).

Cream

400g very thick Greek yoghurt

250g whipping cream

200g vanilla powdered sugar

3tb.s. mixed spices

1 1/2 tb.s. gelatine powder

Whipp the cream until stiff, adding powdered sugar gradually. Add spices and yoghurt and stir well. In a small bowl heat small amount of water with gelatine powder, until it is dissolved. Add this mixture to yoghurt cream. Stir.

Line the same baking tray with plastic film, place one plain layer of sponge cake. Pour the cream over it (same a little bit for top). Cover with another layer of sponge cake (the one with cookies in it). Using the remaining cream glue small meringues to the cake top.

Refrigerate overnight. Remove from the tin (lifting the plastic film). Cut into portions.

Lebkuhen. Christmas Mood / Рождественские Пряники

As  leaves are turning yellow and red I'm getting into Christmas mood. Together with kids we look through holiday pictures, holiday recipes and wait for presents...already in October!:) I blame the weather this year, actually.
I've made quite a few Holiday cookies through the years, but never German Lebkuhen. So it was time for them this year.  This recipe makes really a lot. The sugar glaze and chocolate makes a huge difference, I would say, because without them the cookies are kind of plain, just fragrant.

Here is the recipe.

225g brown sugar
225g honey
250ml light molasses
250ml sour cream
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp  soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp cloves
1 tbsp cocoa
200g candied orange, lemon and citron peel, diced (mixed peel)
100g slivered almonds
about 1 kg flour (depending on the dough)

Makes 3 baking trays of Christmas-y, fragrant little glazed and dipped in chocolate cookies. Enough for all your neighbours.
Heat molasses, sugar, honey in a small pan until sugar dissolves. Add butter. Cool a bit. Add soda and sour cream together. Transfer the mixture to a larger bowl. Add spices and flour, until the dough can be formed. Do not add too much flour.
Cover the dough with plastic and let it stand in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Scoop balls of dough with a table spoon and flatten them a bit. Place the cookies onto lined with baking paper baking tray.
Bake for 15 minutes. Let them cool a bit. Prepare a glaze with lemon juice, water and (vanilla) powdered sugar in equal parts. Deepen each cookie into the glaze and place them onto wire rack.
Melt about 150g of bitter (or milk) chocolate and deepen each cookie bottom onto it. Let them dry. Store in an airtight container with a small slice of apple so that the cookies keep soft.

Glazed Cut-out Cookies / Глазированное Печенье

This recipe is really good and I come back to it very often. Kids ask to bake stars, hearts, animals... quite often and I don't look for any new recipes any more, because this one is just so good. The cookies come out very tasty, fragrant, chewy with crunchy sides and a sweet glaze.

1 cup soft butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
almond extract
vanilla extract
1 t.s. salt
2 3/4 cups flour (begin with 1/2 and see if you need more)

Beat butter, egg and sugar until combined and smooth. Add extracts, salt and flour. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes if you're making them in summer. Roll the dough out into a thick (about 0,5cm) disk. Cut out cookies and place them onto baking tray, covered with baking paper.
Bake for about 10 minutes at 175C.

Glaze

I use a very simple recipe.
0,5 cup powdered sugar (with vanilla)
1 tb.s. runny honey
1-2 tb.s. water
colouring gel or liquid

Mix all ingredients together until you get thick paste that slowly runs from the spoon if you lift it.
I use a simple watercolour paint brush for this. Let the cookies dry. The above quantity is probably enough for half of the cookies, so you can repeat with another colour for the rest of them.

Enjoy!

Coconut Orange Marshmallow Cake / Кокосово-Апельсиновый Торт с Маршмеллоу

Driving down the hill from our home to the city I noticed a lot of new flowers on fruit trees and when I saw that mimosa trees are in full blossom it just made my day!

Mimosa flowers are associated with my childhood. Every year aunt of my grandmother who lived in the south of France  would send small dried mimosa branch in an envelope. It was such an excitement for me as a child living in Soviet country:) Yeah...

So, inspired by bright fluffy yellow flowers and a lot of sun I made a cake...which actually would taste great on Easter table. Refreshing orange and coconut combination and a thick and fluffy marshmallow cream. The cake layers are on the dense side though, but tasted delicious.

Hope you enjoy it!:)

Cake

225 g soft butter
2 cups sugar
vanilla
1 t.s. salt
2 1/2 cups cake flour
10 g baking powder
1 cup yoghurt
5 eggs

Beat butter with sugar until fluffy. Add buttermilk and eggs. Mix well. Now add flour, salt, baking powder and vanilla.

Grease 2x20cm springforms with butter and sprinkle with flour. Pour the batter into them and bake at 175C  for about 50 minutes. Cool completely. Cut each cake into 2 parts horizontally. Trim the top. Drizzle each cake layer with coconut liqueur.

Marshmallow Cream

4 egg whites
drop of lemon juice
2 cups sugar
100ml water
50ml runny honey or syrup
 pinch of salt
vanilla
1 shot of coconut liqueur + more for the cake layers
grated coconut

Beat egg whites with lemon juice until soft peaks.

In a large pan combine water, sugar and honey. Bring the mixture to boil on hight heat, whisking often. Cook during 4 minutes.

Continue beating the egg whites and carefully pour the hot syrup into the whites. Add vanilla and liqueur. Beat until the cream is cooled a little (5-7 minutes).

Orange Curd

4 egg yolks
80ml orange juice
150g sugar
zest of 1 small orange
60g butter
some vanilla
1 t.s. gelatine

Place yolks, juice and sugar into a metal bowl over the simmering water. Cook, whisking often until the mixture thickens (about 10 minutes). Set aside. Add butter, zest, gelatine and vanilla. Let it cool.


Spread orange curd on the first layer of cake. Cover with another cake layer and spread marshmallow cream over this one. Cover with third cake layer and spread orange curd on top. Place the last cake layer over the rest and cover the entire cake with marshmallow frosting. Sprinkle with some remaining curd over the top of the cake , sprinkle with grated coconut.

Enjoy!

similar cake from three years ago here.

image taken from here

Strawberry Vanilla Flower Cupcakes (Valentine's) / Ванильно-Клубничные Капкейки-Цветы

The recipe of these cupcakes is very simple, I just wanted to create something that would remind me of spring, sun and warmth. I hope you enjoy these flower cupcakes as much as I ( and my family) did. And I guess, have a happy Valentine's Day, if you celebrate it!:)

Strawberry Cupcakes

3/4 cup sugar

almost 2 cups AP flour

5 full tb.s. strawberry milk powder

10g baking powder

0,5 t.s. salt

4tb.s. vegetable oil

0,5 cup milk

1 egg

0,5 cup boiling water

Mix all dry ingredients, add wet ingredients, stir everything well in the end add boiling water and mix until you get no more lumps.Preheat oven to 175C. Grease cupcake forms(12). Divide the dough between them, don't fill them to the edge.Bake for 18 minutes. Let them cool completely.

Vanilla Buttercream

200g soft butter

0,5 t.s. salt

200g vanilla powdered sugar

food coloring

Beat the butter until fluffy, add powdered sugar and food colouring. Transfer the cream into a piping bag (not all at once). Using different nostrils decorate the cupcakes. It is actually much easier than I imagined before.Enjoy! 

Just some more pretty photos:)

Cappuccino Cake / Торт Капучино

When the weather is rainy, it's dark and dull outside what can be better than a cup of hot cappuccino? And what about a cappuccino cake? Sweet, fragrant, buttery cake with lots of coffee cream and a chocolate top with crunchy nuts? I especially liked this dough which is kind of a cross between a cake and a cookie. The recipe is one of the old ones that I found in my mum's cooking notebook.
Oh, enjoy it!

The cake

130g butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
10g baking powder
vanilla essence
1 cup flour
pinch of salt

Beat soft butter with sugar and salt until fluffy, add eggs one by one, then sift flour with baking powder and mix well.

Preheat oven to 180C (fan). Pour the batter into 20cm baking form covered with baking paper. Bake for 30 minutes, until done. Set to cool completely.

The cream

7 egg yolks (use whites for a healthy omelette:))
0,5 cup sugar
0,5 cup vanilla powdered sugar
rum essence
3t.s. coffee powder
0.5 cup warm milk
250g softened butter

Combine yolks with milk and sugar in a small pot and heat carefully on medium heat, stirring from time to time until the mixture thickens, do not let it boil. Add essence and coffee, stir to dissolve and let it cool.

Beat butter until fluffy, adding powdered sugar, then add yolk cream to the butter, spoon at a time.

Cut the cake into 2 layers. Trip the top. Spread part of cream over one layer, cover with another layer of cake and frost the cake from every side. Let it sit in fridge for a while.

Melt 160g dark chocolate with a spoon of oil. Dip salted and roasted almonds in chocolate. When the chocolate is not too hot carefully pour it over the cake and level it, arrange almonds on top. Set into fridge.

Melt 160g chocolate with 80ml whipping cream, stir and set into the fridge until the ganache is set and spreadable. Transfer it into a piping bag and pipe some pattern onto the top of the cake.

Enjoy!:)

Cranberry-Raspberry Meringue Cake / Клюквенно-Малиновый Торт Безе

This is another take on meringue cake....I just remembered that last year we had Pavlova for New Years....so I am repeating myself again.

This roulade cake is adapted from here. I added raspberry to it, because cranberries are not exactly favourite berries of my kids. And I am glad I did, it became very aromatic, a very tasty cake indeed.

The cake is light with crispy-chewy meringue layer and fluffy cream with berries and nuts. Not too sweet. Extremely easy to prepare also. Enjoy!

4 egg whites
pinch of salt
1 t.s. lemon juice
150g vanilla powdered sugar

200ml whipping cream
100ml very thick Greek yoghurt
3tb.s. powdered sugar

100g dried cranberries
about 80-100ml orange juice
sugar to taste (I added 2 tb.s.)
a pinch of cinnamon
150g frozen raspberries
1 tb.s. potato/corn starch
some crushed walnuts

Beat egg whites with lemon juice and salt until thick. Add powdered sugar in 3 batches, continue beating until stiff picks.

Preheat oven to 160C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Draw a 23x32cm rectangle. Transfer egg white batter onto the baking tray, level well. Bake during 15 minutes. Let it cool.

Whip cream and some powdered sugar and vanilla. Add yoghurt and whip again. Set aside.

In a small pan combine cranberries, orange juice, sugar and cinnamon. Cook on medium heat until cranberries soften. Add raspberries and cook for a couple of minutes more. Add starch, dissolved in some orange juice and let the mixture thicken. Set aside to cool completely.

Spoon prepared berry compote onto meringue (use only 2/3 of it). Now spread whipped cream on top. Sprinkle with some walnuts.

Beginning with a short end roll the meringue carefully into a roulade, pulling onto paper beneath the meringue. Transfer onto a plate and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Enjoy!

And I hope everyone had joyful Holidays:)

Black Tea Chocolates / Шоколадные Конфеты с Кремом из Черного Чая

Cold weather outside reminded me of chocolates mould in my drawer. Somehow I take it out only in winter. This time I wanted a little bit different filling, something that is not very common. Black tea seemed interesting to me...

The flavour of the filling is not very distinct when biting a piece of candy...dark chocolate is very dominant (It would be interesting to experiment with white chocolate maybe). But when eating it without the chocolate I could definitely taste a refreshing tea note in it. All in all I liked the result.

100g softened butter
pinch of salt
0,5 cup vanilla powdered sugar
2 or 3 tb.s. hot milk
1 large black tea bag
pinch or two of powdered cinnamon
100g melted dark chocolate

Melt chocolate with a spoon of vegetable oil. Cover every side and bottom of the chocolate mould with melted chocolate. Freeze during several minutes. Beat butter with salt and powdered sugar until fluffy. Add cold strong tea (made with a couple of table spoons of hot milk and a tea bag). Beat the frosting until everything is incorporated, add cinnamon to taste.

Place small amounts of filling into each chocolate mould. Freeze again. Now cover every candy with the rest of melted chocolate. Level  the surface with a large knife. Freeze until  candies are hard. Take them out of their moulds. Enjoy:)

And a very Happy New Year to you all!

Crunchy Gingerbread Cream Truffles / Имбирные Трюфели с Орехом

Winter is for sure a season of candy in my family. And luckily they don't take much time or afford to make and can be stored for days in fridge. That's a good thing during Holiday season...well, any season actually:)

These truffles are really silky soft inside with crunchy nuts and chocolate on the outside. Really lovely treat!:)

These candies were made of leftovers gingerbread frosting for eclairs before. So I got only 12 out of what was left. I'll give the recipe here for about 24 truffles.

150g butter
3/4 cup vanilla powdered sugar
1/4 t.s. salt
3/4 t.s. cinnamon
3/4 t.s. nutmeg
1/4 t.s. cloves
2 tb.s. flour
1-2 tb.s. full fat sour cream or whipping cream

roasted and crushed hazelnuts
160-180g dark or semisweet chocolate
1tb.s. vegetable oil

Beat butter and powdered sugar until fluffy, add spices, flour and then cream as much as you like the consistency to be. I would recommend only 1 tb.s.

Chill this frosting in the fridge until it gets quite hard.

Scoop with melon scoop spoon balls, roll them in crushed nuts. Freeze for 15 minutes.

Melt chocolate and oil. Drop every truffle into chocolate to cover and place them onto baking paper. Place them again into freezer for 10 minutes.

They are ready!

Gingerbread Eclairs / Имбирные Эклеры

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Holiday is near and I have no plans to bake anything traditional this year. No Christmas puddings or cakes. I just wanted something that my family really likes. It hurts my eyes and soul to watch pieces of special Xmas cake left for days in the fridge....

I did use some winter spices in my eclair filling to make them more festive. I did not pipe too much cream into these mini profiteroles, leaving them as light as possible. And of course, finished them with a chocolate glaze:)

Eclairs (makes more than 40 mini ones)

200ml water
1 tb. s. sugar
1/4 t.s. salt
85g butter

1 cup flour
3 large eggs

Heat in a pan water, sugar, salt and butter until melted. Add flour and stir vigorously. Let the mixture cool for a couple of minutes and add eggs one by one, stir until incorporated. You could use hand blender to make sure there are no lumps.

Preheat oven to 230C. Using a piping bag pipe around 40 small "stripes" (or 20 large) onto baking sheet covered with baking paper.

Bake during 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 175C and bake another 10 minutes. If your eclairs are larger, you may need 15 minutes instead of 10.

Let them cool on a wire rack.

Gingerbread Buttercream

150-200g soft butter
0,5 t.s. salt
1 cup vanilla powdered sugar
1 t.s. cinnamon
3/4 t.s. ginger
1 t.s. nutmeg
1/4 t.s. cloves
2-3 tb.s. flour
1-2 tb.s. full fat sour cream

Beat butter with powdered sugar, add spices, salt and cream. Now add some flour to thicken the cream a bit.

Carefully cut open each profiterole from one side using a sharp knife. Pipe some cream into it.

Melt 80g dark chocolate with 1 tb.s. vegetable oil. Spread some chocolate onto each eclair, using tea spoon. Place them all into freezer for 10 minutes.

Now they are ready! Happy Holidays!

Orange & Chocolate Yoghurt Cupcakes / Йогуртовые Капкейки с Апельсином и Шоколадом

I enjoy baking with orange or lemon flavours during winter season. Citrus fruit always associates with Holidays.

These cupcakes turn out to be perfectly moist and fluffy with tender orange flavour. They pair well with this delicious vanilla-rum frosting. And some dark chocolate always goes well with anything citrus. Here they are.

Cupcakes

130ml vegetable oil (hazelnut oil)
3/4 cup sugar
1 finely grated orange peel
2 eggs
50ml orange juice
2/3 cup Greek yoghurt
rum essence
10g baking powder
1 1/2 cups flour

In a bowl beat together sugar and oil, add eggs and orange peel. Pour orange juice, yoghurt and rum essence into the mixture. Beat until incorporated. Add flour and baking powder.
Grease 12 cupcake forms and pour the batter into them. Bake at 170C for around 17 minutes. Cool completely.

Cream

200g soft butter
0,5 t.s. salt
1 cup vanilla powdered sugar
rum essence
1-2 tb.s. full fat sour cream or cream
1 tb.s. milk
0,5 cup flour

Beat butter with powdered sugar until fluffy, add salt, essence and flour. Depending on desired consistency add more or less cream and milk.

Pipe the cream onto cupcakes. Place them into freezer for 15 minutes. Melt 100g dark chocolate with a spoon of vegetable oil. Drizzle melted chocolate over cupcakes. Sprinkle with some orange peel. Enjoy!

As I mentioned before here are some photos from Hong Kong and Hainan Island - we truly enjoyed this winter break, so beautiful and relaxing...

Coconut Candy / Кокосовые Конфеты

This recipe is adapted from a magazine for girls. Quite funny, that my daughter found it and insisted to make it. We slightly changed it, but the result is delicious! Very easy too. Perfect for a small party of just as a snack with tea of coffee. Enjoy!

200g white chocolate
100ml whipping cream
30g butter
pinch of salt
about 60g dessicated coconut for filling
and about 75g coconut for rolling
about 2 cups crushed corn flakes (not too much)

Melt chocolate, butter and cream in a microwave, stir until combined, add salt. Add crushed corn flakes and coconut. Mix everything and let it cool for 10 minutes in the fridge. With a small spoon form balls out of the coconut mixture and roll those balls in more coconut. Chill in fridge before serving. You could insert an entire almond into the middle of each candy if you like, but it's a bit dangerous for younger children.

We just returned from our China trip, all memories are so fresh. It was awesome! We've been to Hong Kong and Hainan Island. Be sure to check for pictures here real soon:)

And if you are a fan of coconut, you may want to check out these truffles too.

White Cake with Chocolate Buttercream and Caramel / Белый Торт с Шоколадным Кремом и Карамелью

I made another cake:) This one is for those who like really sweet desserts! Cake layers are tasty with pleasant texture and butter taste, a little bit on dense side, but still airy. When preparing caramel, watch that it does not get too hard, otherwise you may have some difficulties with cutting the cake.

White Cake

300g butter, softened

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

180ml thin yoghurt

3 cups flour

1/2 t.s. salt

10g baking powder

vanilla and rum essence

Preheat oven to 175C. Grease and sprinkle with flour 3x20cm round cake forms. 

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy, add eggs one by one. Pour yoghurt into the batter.

Sift flour with salt and baking powder and add to the mixture. Devide the dough into 3 parts. Bake each layer for about 30 minutes. Check with a skewer. Cool completely.

Chocolate Buttercream

about 400g soft butter

500g vanilla powdered sugar

1t.s. salt

about 100ml whipping cream

1/2 cup cocoa powder

Beat butter until soft, add slowly sugar and cocoa, beat carefully until smooth, add less or more cream to correct for the consistency. 

Spread the cream over first and second cake layers. Place third layer on top but don't frost it. Cover the sides of the cake with cream. Save some cream for decoration.

Caramel Top

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

6tb.s. runny honey

1/2 t.s. salt

2tb.s. heavy cream

vanilla

Mix all ingredients apart from vanilla. Combine them in a pan and cook on low heat until soft ball stage. Add vanilla and let it cool until it's not hot any more.

Carefully spread caramel over the top of cake. It's quite easy to do with a spoon. Let it cool in the fridge. Pipe the rest of cream to cover ugly edges:)

When cutting the cake, use heated sharp knife.

Speculaas Cookie/ Печенье Спекулаас

I just wanted to share this very good recipe of Dutch Speculaas cookies, which one can find everywhere in the Netherlands now before the Holidays. Actually, all year round this lovely cookie will be served with tea or coffee at many cafes. My children surely miss the entire holiday atmosphere here in Istanbul and this is my tiny attempt to bring them into the 5th December mood.

This recipe produces crunchy fragrant and very tasty cookie. If you prefer more chewy version try to bake them a little less, though this is how they should be- crunchy and crumbly.

I do not have a special mold, well I don't think I need it to bake a cookie once per year...but if you happen to have it, the cookies will turn looking more festive, of course.

Adapted from here

1 cup butter, softened
vanilla
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
3 1/2 cups flour
10g baking powder
2 1/2 tb.s. speculaas spice (which is 8 parts cinnamon, 2 parts nutmeg, 2 parts cloves, 1 part white pepper,
1 part ginger, 1 part cardamom)
1 t.s. salt

* I did not use nutmeg and white pepper and the flavour was still very close to the original

Mix dry ingredients together. In a standing mixer cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one by one. Through all dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Refrigerate the dough for an hour minimum.

Preheat oven to 175C. Devide the dough into 3 or 4 parts and roll each part 5 mm thick. Cut out the cookies. Place them onto baking tray, covered with paper or silicone mat (which I used). Bake app. 11 minutes. They should not be too dark.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Gingerbread Petit Fours with Blackberry Buttercream/ Шоколадно-Имбирные Птифур с Ежевичным Кремом

With Holidays approaching I am more and more in the mood of winter favourite flavours. Since we came back from the Netherlands last month my kids keep asking me for some "pepernoten" and "spekulaas" cookies, as there were already plenty of such in the shops. Here in Istanbul there is not even a hint of winter yet:)

Well, I decided to spare the cookies for December and to spoil them a little with these flavours but in another form of sweets. I made this tasty gingerbread cake using this recipe. Then I cut the cake into squares, filled each with blackberry buttercream and frosted them with chocolate. That was a lot of chocolate!

Making these petit fours was a lot of fun, not tiring at all, just make sure you've got plenty of chocolate at hand and try to cut the cake really carefully, so that it does not crumble too much.

Gingerbread Cake

2 cups flour
10g baking powder
pinch of salt
1 full t.s. cinnamon
1 t.s. powdered ginger
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
200ml milk
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup molasses

Mix dry ingredients together. In a standing mixer combine butter and sugar and beat until fluffier. Then add eggs, molasses, lemon zest. Now add dry ingredients and milk and beat until combined.

Grease 22cm square baking form and sprinkle with flour. Pour the batter into it and bake at 175C for about 35 minutes, until done. Let it cool completely. Cut the cake into 24 pieces. Get rid of any sticking crumbs.

Blackberry Buttercream

app. 5-6 tb.s. blackberry jam, blended with hand blender
app. 130g soft butter
pinch of salt
100-150g powdered sugar
1tb.s. whipped cream

Beat butter, adding jam until fluffy, add sugar, salt and cream. Using piping bag pipe some cream into the cetre of each square. Freeze the cakes during 30 minutes or longer.

Melt around 300g dark chocolate with 2tb.s. vegetable oil. Using a teaspoon, cover every cake with chocolate and freeze these petit fours until the chocolate is set, 15 minutes. Pipe some remaining cream on top of each cake. They can be served:)

Truffle Brownie with Dulce de Leche and Caramelized Nuts / Брауни с Трюфелем, Дульче де Лече и Карамелизированными Орехами

These brownies are very rich, of course and one struggles to eat an entire piece, but oh, they are lovely! Salty-sweet crunchy caramelized nuts on top of an intense chocolate truffle, dulce de leche frosting and a soft and delicious brownie. I mean, we are talking about several desserts in one here:)!

The process of making them took not so much time, since I did all those steps in between of doing other things around the house, so I did not notice any difficulty. You would just have to clean some mess after everything is done.

I got 16 rich pieces out of this quantity of ingredients. They could be divided into even smaller portions, it's just that I never cut brownies into tiny pieces before, so I did not want to experiment this time.

For brownies

160g dark chocolate
1tb.s. cocoa powder
150g butter
150g flour
200g sugar
3 eggs
2t.s. coffee powder
vanilla to taste
pinch of salt

Melt chocolate, butter, add cocoa, vanilla, coffee and sugar. When chilled a bit, add eggs, flour and stir well. Pour into prepared tin and bake during 20 minutes at 175C. Let it cool completely. Cut into (16) pieces.

In the meantime, boil 400ml can with condensed milk during 2 hours. let it chill under cold water, then open a can and pipe dulce de leche onto brownies.

Melt in the microwave 160g dark chocolate and 160g butter. Stir to combine. Chill in the fridge until scoop-able. With the help of a tea spoon shape 16 truffles and put onto each brownie.

Caramelized nuts

200g hazelnuts
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
good pinch of salt
1 tb.s. runny honey

In a small pot boil water, honey and sugar until sugar dissolves. dd nuts and stir. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 175C. Place nuts with syrup onto baking tray, lined with silicone mat. Bake during 7 minutes approximately.

While nuts are still warm, shape them into small towers (some nuts will remain). place these nuts onto truffles, when completely cold. They can be served now.

Russian "Pile of Logs" Cake / Поленница или Монастырская Изба

When I was small I tried this cake at our friend's birthday party, it seemed so magical to me, I really loved it! But since then I do not remember that I ever ate it again, though it is one of classical/popular Russian cakes - like cookie horns filled with cherries and layered with whipped cream.  So, years after, I just wanted my kids to try it too and made it based on several recipes from internet. Of course, kids nowadays are really spoiled with all kind of sweets available, not like back then (and back then in USSR especially:)) But it was a nice experience to make it and kids loved it's unusual for a cake shape.

Enjoy it too, if you like!

4 cups flour
250ml Greek yoghurt
10g baking powder
1 1/4 cup butter
100-200g sugar (to taste)
0,5 t.s. salt

600g (frozen) pitted cherries
sugar to taste
rum essence or real rum

Mix sifted flour, baking powder, salt. Add butter, cut into chunks, yoghurt (or sour cream) and sugar. Create a ball and chill it in the fridge for an hour (cover with plastic wrap).

Preheat oven to 180C.

Divide the dough into 3 equal parts. Dust working surface with flour. Roll each part into a 20x25cm rectangle and cut it into 5 equal stripes. Lay frozen or defrosted cherries in a line on each stripe. Now pinch the sides of the stripes. Try not to leave any holes.

Bake these cherry cookies on a baking tray covered with baking paper for about 20-25 minutes, until golden. Let them cool.

600ml whipping cream
vanilla and rum essence to taste
up to a 200g powdered sugar (as sweet as you prefer)

160-180g dark chocolate, melted with 1 tb.s. oil

Whip cold cream with powdered sugar and flavourings until picks can be formed. Now choose a plate for serving the cake. Place 5 "logs" on a plate, spread cream over them, place 4 "logs" on top of those, spread the cream, then 3-2-1 log in the end. Frost the entire cake with whipped cream. Let the cake stand in fridge for several hours (overnight is convenient).

Melt the chocolate, take the cake out of the fridge and pour the chocolate over the cake. Let it sit in the fridge until the chocolate is set. Now take the cake out of the fridge and let it sit for 10-15 minutes in room temperature. Heat a sharp knife and chop uneven ends of the cake from both sides. Now it can be served! It's even better the next day.

We have just returned from our trip to the Netherlands. You could check out photos here:)