It is -31ºF outside, terribly cold, cars are frozen, no desire to work :) Who wouldn't wish to drink some hot tea and eat desserts, cuddle in bed and watch funny movies during the entire cold winter day.

The inspiration for this cake I found in a book "Confectioner's Bible" by Alexander Seleznev, our famous russian pastry chef (and the only one I know :) I borrowed the idea, supplemented it with my preferences and ended up with this deliciuos, very rich in flavors and very fragrant cake.

I chose velvety, deep-chocolate sponge cake for the base of the cake and topped it with tender and silky custard-cream with orange slices. The top layer is delicate joconde - almond cake, which is baked without flour.

The cake is covered with French "ganache" and decorated with white chocolate, candied orange peel, coffee beans, chocolate covered coffee beans and caramel.

As a person who loves chocolate and mushrooms I do not like nuts and poppy seeds :) But many of my friends do and they kept asking me to make this traditional by now Russian cake for lots of times.

I borrowed the sponge cake recipe from my grandma’s recipe book…handwritten, shabby, but still beautiful. It feels like it still smells of her baking experiments too.

So I didn’t have to work on that freezing winter day, since I am on vacation! And Sophie and I photographed and tasted this delicious cake.

It combines very flavorful sponge cakes, which have walnuts and almonds, dried apricots and poppy seeds as fillings. Cakes are soaked with liquor syrup Irish Cream and topped with whipped cream-caramel frosting.

This time I had enough time to think of some nice decorations too. And I was only satisfied with my second attempt for every decor piece. I tried to keep natural with my décor! So I made caramelized hazelnuts, caramelized lemon slices, which are so good on their own too, and meringues.

What is going to happen if you close your eyes and make a deep breath of tangerine and chocolate? I believe, imagination will instantly transport us into a fairy tale of New Year, Christmas trees and twinkling lights. Supplement "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from The Nutcracker music to this and here we go – we believe in miracles again.

In addition to Russia's traditional Christmas flavors of tangerines and chocolate, festive Christmas desserts also include cakes with dried fruits in the traditions of Great Britain.

Fruit cake - a delicacy of British cuisine. Its origin dates back into the Middle Ages. Dried fruit began to be supplied in the UK from Portugal and the Mediterranean in 13th century. At the beginning, small amount of dried fruit were added when baking bread. The first fruit pies were very luxurious and baked for special occasions. A fruit cake in the manner we make it today appeared later in 18th century, when fruit pies recipes were adopted for making wedding cakes.

Today I offer you a recipe, where I use dried fruit for compote to server with panna cotta. This is my little touch of Britain’s Christmas dessert tradition.

Well, I guess we couldn’t stop winter from coming! It is -15C outside and no more desire to stick our noses out. On one of these snowy evening I’ve gotten that phone call from one of small cafes of my city.

They wanted to try some of my desserts. It was something different for me and I said “yes”.

What they loved the most from the pictures were my favorite desserts, isn’t that inspiring? “My love” chocolate cake, that I created for myself last year :) Yes, guilty - to correspond my love to bitter chocolate and sour lemon combination. Forgive me my indelicacy. Another choice was more of a summer cake! It has brown sugar-banana sponge cake complemented with strawberry mousse and white chocolate-passion fruit mousse.

Hi there!

I am happy to say it is the second day in a row I am wearing my cowboy boots, kindly given to me by my friend Marsha. Xoxo! I love those…and the reason is – rain!

So rainy these days, but still warm. These summer rains give as a chance to spend a summer evening or two at home…baking some lovely treat.

I had a bunch of ripe and juicy cherries, strawberries from my mom’s garden and some nectarines from the local market. All are just created for a perfect summer fruit tart.

Would you think of a winter look for a summer pastry?

It turned out so naturally, I didn’t plan it…

But let me tell you about today’s day first and about the pastries second.

It is overcast today…and overcast weather is my favorite. I love it when the chilly wind messes my hair and brings the smell of fall into the city.

Too early for the 22nd of July, but this is what the day is like today and I enjoy it. I must add all the best things, that ever happened to me, did happen in fall, so this might be the reason I always wait for fall, I hope it will bring something good to me again.

I took my coworker for a walk during lunch time and now we are back in the office. And I suddenly remembered that I didn’t post my last pastries. Those are raspberry with white chocolate wrap. The thing is that they are dusted with sugar powder and look so wintery.

My mom and I were talking about what local berries I should use in my summer baking experiments. I always get very enthusiastic about local berries, because we only have them like during 1 month of July, so it is worth rushing, wouldn’t you say?

We have an extremely hot summer this year. It is very unusual; we have a beautifully warm weather since the end of April. And we did start wearing shoes at the beginning of April, which I usually wear boots until the middle of May! It is unbelievable.

So, accidently, berries came up ripe earlier then they usually do. We would normally pick strawberries at the beginning of July, but for now they are almost all eaten up!

I had to catch up with the warm weather and berries! Honeysuckle is the first berry we get in June. It is bitter and very bitter! But the way it looks – its velvet blue outside with the white fairy dust seem so irresistible to me. Its place is on the table, on a sparkling white plate…and in the cake too!

At the beginning of this post I would like to thank my photographer Sveta Peseckaya for her kind participation :) So, we were making the tarts with fresh berries and steamed honey apples. Easy, delicious and light!

Make the tart shells with your favorite recipe. You may use the one from our site.

The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

Chocolate Marquise is a frozen chocolate mousse placed on a tender torched meringue pillow, topped with classic smooth, creamy, and delicious caramel sauce and spicy-sweet almonds. What a beautiful combination of flavours and textures!

Chrunchy! Spicy and sweet almonds are an excellent source of healthy polyunsaturated fats, fibers, proteins, and vitamins. First time I tried those was Thanksgiving of 2006! Marsha made about two half sheet pans at noon and they were all gone by 4 p.m. I just grabbed a handful every time I would walk through the kitchen and I just had to walk through the kitchen constantly on that day!

Recipe by Aran Goyoaga.

Japaneese Matcha tea also known as green powdered tea is an ingredient of the day in my today’s post. It gives you energy just like coffee and is loaded with antioxidants 15 times higher, than the regular green tea bag.

Matcha is usually enjoyed as a hot tea. But it has currently become a wonderful ingredient for pastry lovers. It is used in a wide variety of sweet things – sorbets, sponge cakes, macaroons and many others.

If we imagine, that Matcha is an alternative to coffee, a natural food coloring and flavoring, which also gives its own astringent taste, it will be hard to resist adding it into some favorite dessert. Let’s say “Opera cake”!