Virtual Medovik Class + We're Moving!

Join me for a virtual medovik class on Sunday, December 3, at 11am PST/2pm EST. And I’m starting a Substack!

Polina C.November 15, 2023cooking class, medovik, honey cake, dessert, cake, everyday cakeComment

Carrot Cake with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

DessertsPolina C.April 5, 2023cake, everyday cake, carrot, dessertComment

Russian Napoleon + Holiday Dessert Roundup!

Flaky layers of puff pastry are filled and topped with whipped pastry cream to make this classic Russian Napoleon. Plus a round up all my favorite desserts from the past year.

Desserts, RussianPolina C.December 20, 2018cake, holiday, cream, pie, tart, washington post, culture magazine, commons, dessertComment

Chewy Ginger Cookies

Russians have a saying that the way you greet the year is the way you’ll spend it. As the first few moments of 2018 began to settle in, I decided I would have no problem if the maxim proved itself true this year. I was in London, my first visit to the storied city, and I had just shared a six-course, Michelin star meal with one of my best friends, Libby, at Fergus Henderson’s St. John. By the time the clock ticked midnight, we were already at the downstairs bar-turned-dance floor, sipping on Negronis, and meeting fellow guests from all parts of the globe. My heart felt full and my world big.

DessertsPolina C.February 2, 2018cookie, baking, sweet, dessert, ginger, molasses, londonComment

An Anniversary, A Few Pies, & A Whole Lot of Gratitude

From the outside, my December probably looks like that of everyone else's: scouring stores and the internet for gifts, raking through stacks of cookbooks for recipes, attending holiday parties and dinners, and trying (keyword here) to balance said parties and dinners with smoothies and salads.

DessertsPolina C.December 19, 2017dessert, tart, cranberry, lattice, pie, orange, pie dough, anniversary, accident Comments

Apple Sharlotka

Light and tender sponge cake and baked apples combine the best of both worlds in this Russian Apple Sharlotka.

Desserts, RussianPolina C.October 15, 2017russian, apple, fall, autumn, sharlotka, cake, dessert, tea, raisin Comments

Buckwheat Brownies

The other weekend, I traveled to NYC to meet with my dear friend Libby who is moving to London at the end of the summer. I think our initial instinct was to have "one last hoorah," but in the end I think we struck a good balance. Yes, there was a night where we may have indulged in too many bottles of sparkling wine, but we were just as happy to spend the next afternoon doing nothing else but rewatch the first season of Girls. Going out aside, we also had the chance to cook a few meals together, picnic in the park after a visit to the Union Square farmer’s market, and snack on world-famous chocolate chip cookies on our way to a memorable breakfast at Jack’s Wife Freda. In between meals, we visited an urban garden in Harlem, made it to a centennial Irving Penn photo exhibit at the Met, and, of course, strolled through Central Park—later returning for Shakespeare in the Park’s “A Midsummer’s Night Dream."

DessertsPolina C.August 3, 2017dessert, sweet, brownie, chocolate, buckwheat Comments

Russian Crumb Cake

Many have asked how I keep myself busy and yes, I've been reading, binging-watching tv shows and keeping up with my favorite food blogs and websites. However, not as much as I’d initially have thought. The amount of mental energy that goes into thinking and worrying about my hand, the focus required for rehab exercises, the mental fog that comes from constant pain and its partner, pain meds, has left me surprisingly pretty unproductive.

Desserts, RussianPolina C.March 6, 2017cake, jam, tea, dessert, nuts Comments

Dorie's Gozinaki

Even though I grew up in a household where the family meal was always the main focal point of holidays and family gatherings, where eating out was once-a-year kind of occasion, my own passion in the kitchen, particularly for baking, didn’t really take hold until high school. Not really sure the exact moment it all clicked, but I do remember coming across what was then a nascent blogging world, being subsequently introduced to the likes of smittenkitchen, David Leibovitz, and Joy the Baker. All of a sudden, obsessing over my RSS feed—making sure I was up to date on all my 20+ blogs— was my new and favorite source of procrastination. This was also around the same time that my usual visits to the library also began to change in motive. I would go and emerge hours later carrying literal stacks of books—no longer of novels, but of cookbooks and the occasional food memoir.