Something

You might think I am undisciplined and disorganized. Or you might be tempted to believe I totally do not care. Or maybe you’ve gone even further as to be wondering if I am still alive. I mean, this absence of mine should be explained somehow, right?

Dear Reader, wonder no longer. I’ve got the answer for you: my Master thesis. It will soon be over, this non-stop mind-grinding. But until then, please bear with me. I will be back soon. I need to.

"Quality baked goods for festival people"

Last year, I beefed about what madness, at least from a sober pedestrian’s perspective, Amsterdam becomes on April 30th – Queen’s Day – when seemingly everybody in Holland pours out onto the narrow cobbled streets of this tiny city with seemingly one purpose -- input and output of all things alcohol. I don’t imagine what I would do this year for Queen’s Day if Anthony, a bright-minded man with a habit to burn spinach gratins and some other dishes, didn’t come up with an idea to set up a stand for Queen’s Day and sell, quote, “quality baked goods to festival people”.

It’s a good thing that Queen’s Day is the only day around here when one does not need official permission to go out and sell things after one’s own heart. As long as you don’t sell animals, weapons, works of art, or perishable goods, you are most welcome, says the City Hall of Amsterdam, to try your luck in commerce on said day. Somehow we reasoned that it’d be more of a social event filled with fun than an earnest business endeavor. We were not exactly right. The whole thing would actually call for proper thinking.

We started brainstorming what to make for Queen’s day weeks before the event. Besides ten calls Anthony had to make to his carpenter friend to ask, and then to remind, if he could please get us some rickety table we’d later set our goods on, our “business plan” included multiple visits to a kitchen equipment store where we’d get needed baking forms, bowls, electronic scales and a hand-mixer. It was in that crammed shop with old dark wooden cracking floors that Anthony saw this man-shaped cookie cutter and got a brainwave -- to make, quote, “men-shaped cookies covered in orange icing to look like the Dutch Nation football team”.

Dutch national colour is orange, so it was imperative to make something orange-y on Queen’s Day. Next, we agreed that we should also make cocoa brownies (because they are always a crowd pleaser and such an easy-peasy thing to make), white wine cake (because it is my favourite!), and orange marmalade cake (because it has orange in it, which, we thought, would appeal to Dutch). For a while, I also got obsessed with what tablecloth to use for the table. I wanted a checkered tablecloth of mild colour, something like light blue. Anthony disagreed. We should look festive and bright, he insisted.

We got a red checkered tablecloth in the end.

Another thing to think of was a place where to set up our stand. What location would make us stand out from the crowd? A small arching bridge, a few meters off a main artery clogged with human traffic, seemed to be just fine.

Anthony, being a graphic designer, also developed clasps for cookie bags with Godful Food logo on them. Tons of effort, time and energy -- plus, a bit of our money -- was put in the “quality baked goods for festival people” campaign, is all I’m driving at.

I should as well tell that I don’t own the oven, still. Neither does Anthony. So we took over the kitchen at Rene’s. Rene is a very, very, very patient person; he is a friend of Anthony. Actually, Rene is a saint of patience. He did not mind us baking non-stop for two days in a row before Queen’s Day. He didn’t say a word about how uncomfortably hot it became in his small-enough-for-one-person studio apartment after we’d told him not to open the windows because of the flies. Sipping on cold dark Belgian beers, he just jokingly referred to this whole bonanza as “a sweating bakeshop”.

As to the oven, it was a microwave contraption with a function of the convection oven. And in that oven, from the inside slightly bigger than two shoe boxes put together, Anthony baked four hundred and thirty five man-shaped cookies that he’d later have to ice in orange.

In that oven, I baked five white wine cakes, one after another; four batches of brownies, one after another (eighty brownies in total); and one orange marmalade cake. Funny, how little, in comparison to the rest, of that orange marmalade cake we made. Its orange-ness seemed fitting for Queen’s Day. It was unusually delicious, zingy, moist, and bright. For some reason, we didn't see it as a best-seller.

We were very wrong. Please stay with me; I will get back to that in a minute.

Before, I just want to tell you what a disaster our “quality-baked-goods-for-festival-people” enterprise turned to be. On the Queen’s Day eve, the weather made a U-turn. It started raining, pouring even. And it did not stop until late afternoon the next day. And who would want to buy sweets which one could not even see because they were all wrapped up in foil to protect them from soaking? I’ve got the answer for you: n.o.b.o.d.y.

A few hours into rain, Anthony got, quote, "a brilliant idea" to wrap the brownies and the slices of the cakes in plastic film individually. This way “we could showcase what we’d got”.

After what seemed like a century, we got our first customers: two Italian ladies. They went for two pieces of orange marmalade cake. The ice was broken. For a moment, though. We couldn’t know those Italian women would be our only customers well until late afternoon. Not that there were no people on the streets to buy our sweets. It was just that those who were passing by weren’t interested. Plain as that. It being Amsterdam, people kept asking us if we were selling hash brownies and everything. Having learned that no, it was normal sweets, they sniffed and walked away.

It kept drizzling on and off. I was wearing a woollen dress, body warmer and raincoat; Anthony had on a flimsy orange t-shirt and hoody. Both of us were cold. My back and my feet hurt from standing for hours. At some point, I remember, I even wanted to pack everything back and leave. We should stick out and be patient, Anthony insistently suggested, his teeth chattering. But me, I could take everything with thin tolerance by the time. Anthony gave me a few of his orange cookies to cheer me up. I squashed the cookies. I did that on purpose. Knowing how much effort he had put into baking and icing each one of them, on the spur of the moment I figured that to squash a few would be a fireproof way to upset him. I became bitter.

Around 1 pm the sun broke out through the thick layer of clouds the colour of quick mercury. Boats loaded with people wearing orange and drinking something strong or other had filled up the canals’ waters. Some boats even had a dj playing live onboard. Everybody was waist-length deep in fun. Sadly, I didn’t feel jovial. I told Anthony as much, put my sunglasses on to hide betraying tears, turned and went away. I folded.

The rest of the day I spent sipping hot Earl Grey with lavender and nibbling on white wine cake I’d kept for us. I felt ashamed to go back. In a way, I let Anthony down. I gave up on our plans. I failed, I kept thinking.

In about an hour after I’d left, Anthony gave me a call -- he was still talking to me, blimey! -- to say that there was this young Italian couple who bought a piece each of orange marmalade cake, white wine cake, and a brownie; and that after a while the guy came for more orange marmalade cake. We had a repeat customer, I was told. “Think for a moment how amazing that someone, at a citywide fest like Queen’s Day, took the time and effort to weave back though all that madness just to get another piece of your orange marmalade cake! You should be immensely proud of that”, said Anthony.

Although it pains me that I didn’t see that guy’s face, it’s still better that way. I think it will do for me to simply know that there is somebody who loved what we’d made and showed that in deed. No matter how bumpy the road, it is the people you travel with -- those you know for long and those who are there just for a moment -- that make it less hurtful, less uncomfortable to keep going.

(Anthony spelled "marmalade" wrong!)

Orange Marmalade Cake

Adapted from Molly Wizenberg

Like I said, it was the cake we had the least of for sale. We had even less after I’d had one piece as my lunch, standing there in the drizzle. I even wished, in secret, it wouldn’t sell at all. I wanted to keep it for myself (I am a fox!). But it so happened it was a hit. That Italian guy, our repeat customer, said that he had “to have another piece of this orange marmalade cake. It is the best”. I don't know if that was what the quy really said, or Anthony exaggerated a little. But anyway...The cake is truly something else. Imbued with fragrant orange and lemon and toasted almond, all moistened by olive oil, it does really taste of summer -- a great thing to have on a rainy day, on any day! It probably explains why it sold well on that gloomy Queen’s Day. That and the fact that it is undeniably delicious.

1 medium orange
1 small to medium lemon
180 gr (6 oz) coarsely ground almonds
110 gr (1 cup) all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
4 large eggs, at room temperature
½ tsp sea salt
340 gr (1 ½ cups) sugar
2/3 cups olive oil
Powdered sugar for serving (optional)

1) Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F).

2) Put the orange and lemon in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, cover. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the fruit is soft, about 30 mins. Drain and let cool.

3) Spread the ground almonds on a clean baking sheet and toast until the almonds slightly take on colour. I learnt that it is a way more convenient to toast already ground almonds; whole almonds become quite oily once toasted, which makes them much messier to grind.

4) Once the fruit is cool, deseed the orange. Cut the lemon in half and scoop out the pulp and seeds. Discard. Put the deseeded orange and lemon rind in a food processor, or a blender, and pulse until finely ground, almost like a puree. Set aside.

5) In a small bowl, sift the flour and the baking powder. Whisk.

6) In a medium bowl, combine the eggs and the salt. Beat until foamy. Keeping beating, add in the sugar. Add the citrus, almonds, and olive oil, and beat on low speed after each addition. Finally, add the flour and with a spatula, or a wooden spoon, mix it in until just incorporated. It’s ok if there are streaks of flour; they will dissipate while baking.

7) Pour the batter in a buttered 9-inch round springform pan; an 8*8-inch square baking pan will work here too. Bake for about one hour, or until a toothpick plunged into the center immerges clean. If the top of the cake browns too soon, cover it with aluminum foil and continue baking until ready. Cool the cake before unmolding.

8) Serve, if you wish, with the dusting of powdered sugar on top.

Earnestly speechless

Before Easter celebrations roll in, please, let me tell you real, real, real quick about this simple, simple, simple dish that would do no less than be a graceful side to meat, poultry, and even fish, should that be your main! Like I just said, the dish is awfully simple. But what you also should know, and consider this your fortune, is that it is utterly delicious. So much so that every time I dig my fork in it, I want to fling my room window open and scream, scream, scream my excitement out at the people on the street, because I swear I get so thrilled about the stuff by every mouthful that I want everybody in the world to know what I know. And it is this: fried potatoes with coriander, cumin and spring onions are terrifyingly awesome together. So much so that it makes me earnestly speechless – even voiceless. And that, as you can see, clashes with my plans to scream. I don’t quite know what I’m going to do, except that I am going to eat those potatoes as much as I can. And if possible, I am going to eat only those potatoes. Come Easter there will be no exception. I’m sure.

At this point I think I should tell you that I am, by default, no stranger to a good potato. The reason is that I am Russian. Consider this for a moment: In the year 2007, Russia, the e-site potato2008.org tells us, was ranked second among the world top ten potato producers. The same potato2008.org says that in potato consumption, Russians “took silver” as well. I personally can testify to that. I grew up in a family where potatoes were bought in sackfuls every fall to last us through the winter months. Up to this day, the tradition, of which my grandparents are in charge, is still running.

Since my childhood up until a few years ago, fried potatoes with onions was the most frequent dish to appear on my plate. I was so familiarized with the stuff that at some point it became impossible for me to get excited about a good potato at all, is what I’m saying. Impossible until I tried the recipe for Lebanese fried potatoes with coriander from the MORO East book last week, that is. Since then, all I want is to scream from, and with, excitement.

Happy Easter, Dear Reader!

Fried potatoes with coriander (cilantro)

Adapted from MORO East by Samantha and Samuel Clark

Serves 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main course

1 (about 2 pounds) kg potatoes, peeled and washed
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
½ tsp ground cumin
10 spring onions, thinly sliced
Large bunch of coriander (around 50 grams), finely chopped (stalks included)
8 Tbsp (120 ml) olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1) Cut the potatoes in half and place them in a large pot. Cover with cold water, add salt and bring to a boil. Cook for about 15-20 mins, or until the potatoes are tender, but not mushy. Drain and let cool until they are comfortably warm to handle.

2) Cut the potatoes in chunks. Gently toss with the cumin, garlic, half the spring onions and half the coriander, making sure not to break the potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3) In a wide non-stick skillet, heat the olive oil over a medium flame. Add the potatoes and fry on one side until these are golden and a bit crispy, about 10 mins. Turn them over with a wooden spoon, taking care not to break them, and fry until the other side is also golden. Transfer to a large serving bowl and combine with the remaining coriander and spring onions. Adjust the seasonings.

I behave accordingly

Dear Reader, I have a bit of news to share!

Those of you who’ve been hanging around here for quite a while (oh lovelies!) must know that since last August

I’ve been working at Gebroeders Niemeijer as a dishwasher, assisting occasionally in tasks like the tartlets-forming or the tartlet dough-making.

I don’t think I told you but for the last few months of 2009, I even used to start my working Sundays in the bakery at 6:30 in the morning. I was meant to help a young French baker Arnaud with early-morning routines until the service in the adjacent breakfast/lunch room would start, after which I’d proceed with the dishes until 6 in the evening. It was a magnificent experience to be in the warmth of the bakery under the veil of pre-dawn winter darkness creating something yeasty and buttery while the rest of the world was still sound asleep. It is indeed a fulfilling feeling to see the results of your labour, almost always backbreaking, on people’s plates.

So the news is that since early February I am known not only as a dishwasher who helps the bakers, but also as a baker’s apprentice. Issa, our master baker, is teaching me the art of pastry making.

At this point I’m in the process of mastering crème au citron (lemon curd), among a few other things. In particular, I’m learning the ways how to feverishly whisk it ten minutes straight and NOT to scream from the numb pain in my right arm.

Let me just repeat: I am a baker’s apprentice. Respect.

That said, were I now writing about another dessert, I’m sure you’d consider a smack in my face. Who am I kidding, another story – what, sixth in a row? -- about something sweet and I, too, would happily slap myself. To avoid any self-abuse, I was thus going to tell you about kale gratin today. I thought it would make for a juicy story. Namely, about how an American guy named Anthony (thirty of age) knew zilch about a vegetable called kale until I invited myself to his kitchen the other day bringing along a pound of stemmed and chopped curly kale to make an eponymous gratin dish. Three out of the four eaters at the table loved it, except myself. Which made me infuriated to the eleventh power. To make me like the stuff, the idea emerged to sub kale for spinach and cut down somewhat on cream and butter. Anthony did as he was told, except that he charred the lot. What exited the oven were the kale ashes. And so the story of kale gratin was buried. Aw shucks! My gumption plummeted, I went back home starving.

In my makeshift pantry (originally, a cupboard) that can barely accommodate three cans of Kusmi Tea, two bags of flour, six small glass jars with various grains and a few more other items, there is always a room for a jumbo jar of creamy peanut butter. (Dutch are ardent peanut butter eaters. I joined the ranks.) Starving, I was tempted to have mouthfuls of the stuff for dinner. But I’m almost twenty-six, so I expect from myself to behave accordingly. I chopped up and browned some onions and garlic, along with fresh ginger; added diced carrots and vegetable stock; brought it all to a boil and then simmered all that until the carrots were soft; and finally stirred in some peanut butter before pureeing the pot's contents.

Yes, I made carrot and peanut butter soup.

Did you know how lovable these two are together?? L.O.V.E.A.B.L.E.

Broad shoulders of peanut butter and a wasp-like waistline of carrots…This velvety bright soup has its own yin and yang of flavours – assertive and delicate, savoury and sweet, earthy and warm. It’s soothing. It’s relaxing. It’s a perfect fare to even out, say, sugar level imbalances that might still be ailing you after I so blatantly subjected you to one dessert after another for months in a row. But there is more to come, you know. So never shall it be said I am stuffing you with sweets without offering you something nourishing in between!

Carrot and Peanut Butter Soup
Serves 4

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
Cayenne pepper
Salt
6 cups vegetable stock or water
4 cups diced carrots
2 laurel leaves
5 sprigs fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley (for cooking you will only need finely chopped stems; save the leaves for garnishing)
1/4 cup peanut butter

1. In a large pot, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil over medium fire. Add the onions and cook until browned, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger. Throw in a pinch of salt and cayenne each. Cook for another minute.

2. Dump in the carrots and pour in the stock or water. Add the laurel leaves and the cilantro stems. Bring to boil. Reduce to simmer and cook until the carrots are soft, about 20 mins. Remove from the heat. Discard the laurel leaves.

3. Stir in the peanut butter. Mix well.

4. Using a blender, puree the soup. Hot liquids expand in volume, so work in batches, 2 or 3 cups at a time. If the soup is too thick, thin it out with more veg stock or water (start with 1/4 cup).

5. Taste and add more cayenne or salt, if needed.

6. Garnish with fresh cilantro or parsley leaves. Serve hot.

A synonym for health

One year zipped past, but I haven’t got any cleverer than I was in the january of 2009 when I, just like now, went to Russia wearing a flimsy woolen coat, hoping that it would solely protect me against perky way-below-zero frosts and merry snowfalls.

Oh silly, silly me!

Up there is a preamble to say that last fourteen days I spent in tight embrace of a nasty cold and its bosom friend -- misery. Not too much of a good time, you understand. Especially so, when more than ever do I now need my brains crystal clear. The whole January I have been tackling a task that requires a condition of an undiluted mental concentration on my part – I had to write three academic essays before February dawns. But no, the universe thought I’d have a time of my life penning those with my mind in thick haze and my nose dripping like a leaking faucet (sorry!). It was no fun, is what I want to say.

So with all that freezing, sneezing, shivering and coughing, I found myself obsessively hankering for oatmeal raisin cookies too. Isn’t oats a synonym for health? See?

Could there be anything easier on earth than to make oatmeal raisin cookies? You only need to schlep-schlep-schlep in the kitchen to cream some butter with some sugar; to beat in some egg; to fold in some flour, oats and raisins; and to mix all that well to form the cookie dough which you’d then scoop out onto the baking dish and send into the oven for fifteen minutes. Simple?

Not so.

The problem is that I chose the wrong recipe which, as I learnt, is better suited for a dustbin than for anything else. It was no fun to make oatmeal cookies that would look as bad as I felt. It wasn’t oatmeal raisin cookies. It was oatmeal raisin spookies. I even can’t call it that, because there was so little oatmeal in the dough that the only place where you could find some was in the recipe’s title.

Terrified, but not defeated, I took the recipe and tweaked it as I pleased, which included reducing the sugar level; upping the oats contents; swapping all—purpose flour for oat flour (we are talking health here, no?); and shaking a firm no to the original instruction to add water to the flour. It took me three batches in total to bring these poor souls to their normal cozy, pretty selves: chewy in the pale center, crisp around the slightly tanned edges, sweet enough to please but not to cloy, and most importantly, cold- and stress-eliminating. And isn’t it what we want from a cookie?

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Adapted from Yuliya Vysotskaya, a russian cookbook author

Yields 8-10

100gr (1/2 cup) butter, softened
100 gr (½ cup) light brown sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla sugar
1 medium egg, at room temperature
100 gr oat flour (which you can easily make by grinding oat flakes in a coffee grinder)
100 gr (3/4 cup) raisins
70 gr (1 cup) quick oats (not steel cut!)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F) and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl – you will only need one bowl for this recipe; isn’t it sweet? -- beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugars; keep beating until fluffy. Beat in the egg.

3. Sift in the oat flour; stir. Fold in the raisins and oats and mix well. The dough will be sticky.

4. Using a tablespoon, scoop out the dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 mins; the cookies should be golden brown at the edges and pale in the center. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool. Upon exiting the oven, the cookies will be somewhat soft until fully cooled.

For cake's sake!!

Sugar, I need a break from you. You are sweet and I like you to insanity. But familiarity breeds contempt, remember? So stay away from me. Not for too long though, for a while. See you very soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Holy baking powder, why only now do I see that for the past two and a half months I’ve been feverishly writing about nothing else but desserts? From this, you would think all I’ve been eating is sweets, no?

Well, yes. Sort of. Cake here, pie there, nothing much, really. But recently instead of basking in pleasure, I found myself cringe at the sight of yet another, however lip-smackingly delicious, dessert. A ‘sugarization’ syndrome, let me tell you. An awful, hair-splitting thing, that. For cake’s sake, mouth-watering desserts should be revered, not pulled a face at! So I decided I should un-sugar myself before getting loaded up again. As soon as I’m finished with this beggar, that is.

I have my priorities, don’t you know.

In other news, two years ago today I started Godful Food. Or Godful Food started me. I don’t know. I’ll try to avoid overwhelming sentimentality here, so I’ll just say oh boy, does this little blog means loads to me. Foremost, because it, quite simply, brings you, Dear Reader, into my life!

It also teaches me to share. Take this Napoleon cake, for example. Under different circumstances, I have no doubts I’d lock myself in a room, pull up the window curtains and toss the stuff down – all by myself. Instead, I hasten to log on Godful Food and share my treasures with you. True, I may stumble along the way and turn the cake into a mess, metaphorically speaking or not. Or I may turn up too late so nobody wants a dessert any more. No matter what, you keep coming back, making this place feel like home to me. Thank you, folks!

Now, I’m not going to have to deal with this Napoleon myself. Reader, please, be my ally! It has come time that this thing, this delicious bastard, finally knows where it belongs -- on our dessert plates.

Forks up, friends!

On a curious note: they say Napoleon cake, French by origin, is so named not after the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, but after Naples, a city in Italy. Whichever, Napoleon is just one of the many nicks of the mille-feuille, the puff pastry with the vanilla cream.

My Napoleon is called Russian for a reason (we always seem to want to have everything our way). Basically, Napoleon is made of three layers of puff pastry jacketed in two layers of vanilla cream, just as befitted the tradition. Russians figured it’s better to make ten or even more puff pastry layers, each blessed with the custard cream. Like I said, being so labour-intensive –and, by extension, swear-words inducing -- this one is meant for big days, like Christmas, or birthday, or blog’s anniversary, no less.

Russian Napoleon Cake

(my family recipe)

Serves 16-18

For the pastry

4 cups (500gr) all-purpose flour, sifted
3 ½ stick (400 gr) butter, cut in ½ inch (apprx. 1 cm) dices
½ cup (125 ml) crème fraiche, cold
½ cup (125 ml) ice cold water
1 large egg
a pinch of salt

For the custard cream

4 cups (1 L) whole milk
2 large eggs
2 cups (400 gr) sugar
5 Tbsp (40 gr) all-purpose flour
2 sticks (250 gr) butter, cut in small pieces
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract

To make the pastry:

1. In a large stainless-steel bowl, and using two sharp paring knives, cut the butter into the flour. The mixture should look pebbly, and lumps of butter should not be larger than a pea.

2. In a small bowl, beat the egg and the salt together. Add the crème fraiche, followed by the water; mix well.

3. Pour the crème fraiche mixture, ½ cup at a time, into the flour-butter mixture. Mix until just combined. Tap the dough out onto a floured surface and knead the dough until elastic and smooth (don’t overwork the dough!).

4. Divide the dough into 10 parts. Form balls. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours, or preferably overnight.

5. Preheat the oven to 425 F (220 C).

6. Take the dough out of the fridge, one ball at a time (the butter that’s in the dough should not melt before it goes in the oven, otherwise you won’t get flaky pastry at the end). On a well-floured working surface, roll out each ball into a thin – as thin as you can -- circle, about 10 inch (24 cm) wide. Roll the dough circle onto a lightly-floured rolling pin, and then unroll it carefully on a baking sheet, covered with parchment paper. Prick with a fork and put in the oven for about 3-5 mins, or until the dough gets lightly golden. Remove from the oven and put aside.

7. Repeat with the remaining balls of dough.

8. Bake the last circle a bit longer than the rest -- until it turns brown. Later you’ll use it, crumbled, for decorating the cake.


To make the custard cream:

1. In a medium non-stick pan, bring half of the milk (1/2 L or 500 ml) to a boil over a low flame.

2. In the meantime, beat the eggs and the sugar together. Add the flour and whisk until the flour is fully incorporated (there should be no lumps left). Pour another half of the milk; stir well.

3. Starting with 1 cup at a time, slowly add the flour mixture into the boiling milk. Working on low heat, stir constantly to avoid burning of the milk. Keep stirring until the mixture becomes thick. Take off the heat. Let cool.

4. When the mixture is still warm enough to make the butter melt, add the butter and the vanilla extract. Stir well until fully dissolved. Let cool completely.

To assemble:

1. Using the back of a soup spoon, spread a ladleful of the cream evenly on every crust, except for the brown one.

2. After every two or three layers, press gently on the cake to make the cream moisturize the crusts.

3. Crush the brown crust by running it over with the rolling pin. Sprinkle the crumbs over the top and the sides of the cake. (You can also use ground walnuts for this).

4. If your Napoleon has uneven edges, you can easily fix it by cutting them off with a sharp knife. (Although I prefer my Napoleon rustic, with all its ruggedness).

5. Let stand for a couple hours. The cake keeps beautifully in the fridge for up to one week.

Readying myself

For some, Christmas and New Year’s holidays have become a glowing memory by now. For some others, a festive table is still set, and a blood sugar level keeps increasing by the day. I’m writing this from Russia (visiting my family), knee-lengths in candies and baked goods, readying myself for yet another massive intake of all things sweet. Say I’m sick I won’t. It’s Orthodox Christmas around here today, after all.

[However surprising or confusing or both, but Christmas in Russia is celebrated on January 7th. Don’t blame the vicar (hello, Anthony!), blame the old Julian calendar.]

They say kutya (KOO-TYA) -- porridge made of wheat or rice grains (symbols of immortality) and honey (a token of happiness) – is an iconic Russian Christmas dish. I can’t attest to that, because in my family, it’s not Christmas without a Napoleon – many-layered cake enrobed in vanilla-scented custard cream, a symbol of my happiness.

Flaky, moist and tender, it’s the-heart-takes-a-lift-to-heaven good. It’s worth every swearing word (on Christmas Eve!) you may hiss while rolling out the gossamer sheets of dough, one by one, ten in total. Insane. Delicious.

The recipe I’ll post soon, I promise. Right now I’m rushing to my grandmother’s for a festive family gathering. But before I go, please take a piece, Dear Reader. It’s for you!