· 5 min read
A Cake for a Russian or Ukrainian Birthday in London
Ordering a cake for somebody who grew up with these cakes is a different problem from ordering a cake. The wrong one is not wrong, it is simply not theirs.
Notes from the kitchen
How things are made, what is worth ordering when, and the answers to the questions we get asked most.
· 6 min read
Handmade Chocolates and Truffles to Order in London
Two boxes on our list are not baking at all. They are there because a cake and a box of chocolates go together, and because most boxed chocolate is disappointing.
· 6 min read
Craquelin, and Why a Choux Bun Wears a Lid
The thin crackled disc on a modern choux bun is not decoration. It solves two problems that had been irritating pastry chefs for two hundred years.
· 5 min read
What Makes a Good Cinnamon Roll
Almost everywhere sells them and most are dry by the time you get one. The faults are specific and they are all fixable.
· 6 min read
Poppy Seed Buns, and the Baking They Come From
A poppy seed bun with seeds scattered on top is not a poppy seed bun. The filling is the whole thing, and making it properly takes a day.
· 6 min read
Sourdough, Rye and Japanese Milk Bread: Three Loaves Compared
Three loaves, three completely different doughs, three different jobs. Here is which one you want and why bread works differently from everything else we sell.
· 5 min read
Apple Hand Pies, and Why They Are Not a Slice of Pie
A hand pie is not a small pie. The pastry is different, the filling is different, and the reason for both is that nobody is giving you a plate.
· 6 min read
How Many Pirozhki to Order, and Which Fillings
The two questions we get asked about pirozhki are always the same: how many, and which ones. Here are the actual numbers.
· 6 min read
Kurabye, Peanut Rings and the Cookies of a Soviet Bakery
Before there were bakery chains there were state bakeries, and they sold the same four or five cookies in every city. Two of them are still worth ordering.
· 6 min read
Blini in London: Thin Pancakes and What Goes on Them
The thing sold in British supermarkets as blini is not what the word means in Russian, and the difference is larger than a size.
· 5 min read
Syrniki in London: the Breakfast Everybody Misses
Syrniki are the thing Russian speakers in London miss at breakfast and almost never manage to reproduce at home. The reason is the cheese, not the technique.
· 6 min read
Sochniki, Vatrushki, and What Tvorog Actually Is
Three of our pastries are built on the same ingredient, and it is one that British supermarkets do not really sell. Here is what it is and why it matters.
· 5 min read
Kartoshka: the Chocolate Potato Cake, Explained
There is no potato in it. There is no baking in it either. Kartoshka is the cleverest thing the Soviet confectionery industry ever did with leftovers.
· 6 min read
Trubochki in London: the Soviet Cream Horns
A crisp spiral of pastry filled with white cream, sold at a fixed price across a country for decades. Here is what was actually in it.
· 6 min read
Oreshki in London: the Walnut Cookies Filled with Dulce de Leche
Oreshki are the thing people ask us for by name more often than any other pastry, usually with a story attached about a grandmother and a particular iron mould.
· 6 min read
Strawberries and Cream Cake, and What Seasonal Actually Means Here
A cake that is only as good as the fruit on it is a cake that should not be sold all year, and ours is not. Here is the reasoning and the alternatives.
· 6 min read
The Vanilla Meringue Cake, and Why It Costs What It Does
It is the most expensive thing on our list and the question we get asked about it is always the same one. Here is the honest answer.
· 6 min read
Meringue Cakes in London: Pavlova, Kyiv, Esterházy and the Roll
Four of our cakes are built on whipped egg white and sugar, and they have almost nothing else in common. Here is how to tell which one you actually want.
· 6 min read
Carrot Cake in London: What Separates a Good One
Carrot cake is the most ordered cake in Britain and the one most often disappointing. The faults are consistent enough to list.
· 7 min read
Basque Burnt Cheesecake in London: Why It Is Meant to Look Like That
People who have not met one before assume it has gone wrong. The scorched top is the recipe, and taking it away would leave a worse cake.
· 6 min read
Muraveynik: the Anthill Cake, Explained
The anthill cake is the one Soviet dessert that was designed around a domestic oven rather than a factory line, and it is still the easiest of them to love.
· 6 min read
Charodeyka: the Soviet Enchantress Cake, Explained
Charodeyka is the cake Soviet children were bought on the way home rather than for a birthday, and it is still the one that disappears fastest from a table.
· 6 min read
Prague Cake in London: the Soviet Chocolate Classic
Prague cake was invented in Moscow, named after a restaurant, and owes its shape to a Viennese cake it is not allowed to be. Here is what is actually in it.
· 7 min read
Bird’s Milk Cake in London: What Ptichye Moloko Is
Bird’s Milk is the lightest thing we make and the hardest to describe to somebody who has never had it. It is not mousse, not marshmallow and not cheesecake, and the difference is in one ingredient.
· 5 min read
Where We Deliver, and What It Costs
Where we go, what it costs, how things are packed, and the small number of things that make a delivery go wrong.
· 6 min read
Blueberry Buns Delivered Across London and Surrey
Buns need 24 hours, cakes need 48, and everything is baked for the date you choose rather than pulled off a shelf. Here is how delivery actually works, which areas we reach, and what to do if you live outside them.
· 5 min read
Seasonal Cakes and Desserts
Some things vanish from the site for months at a time. That is deliberate, and it is a taste decision rather than a marketing one.
· 6 min read
The History of the Jagodzianka
The jagodzianka has no founding date and no named inventor. What it has is a dough with a long history in Central Europe, a berry that was gathered rather than bought, and a season of about eight weeks.
· 5 min read
Why We Need 48 Hours
The 48 hours is not administrative. For several of our cakes, the resting is the last stage of making them rather than a wait after they are finished.
· 6 min read
What Is Actually in a Jagodzianka
Six ingredients make an enriched dough, and each one is doing a job. Here is what is in our blueberry streusel buns, what they are baked alongside, and what we can and cannot promise about allergens.
· 5 min read
Cake, Tart or Pastries: Which to Order
Most people choose between a cake, a tart and a box of pastries on flavour. The better question is who is going to serve it and how.
· 6 min read
How Many Blueberry Buns Do You Need Per Person?
Blueberry streusel buns come four to a box, so the maths is easy once you know how many people actually eat a whole one. Here are the numbers we give customers for breakfasts, birthdays, coffee mornings and picnics.
· 5 min read
How to Order a Cake Online
The ordering itself takes four minutes. The parts worth understanding are the date, the minimum and what happens if you need to change something.
· 6 min read
Blueberry Buns and the British Bilberry
Britain grows the same berry a Polish jagodzianka is built on. It ripens on the moors in July and August, it has three names, and it never made it into a supermarket punnet. Here is why, and how it connects to a box of blueberry buns in London.
· 7 min read
Kyiv Cake in London: A Guide to Kyivskyi Tort
Kyiv cake is the one people describe by its texture before they describe its flavour. Here is what it is made of, why it was once the hardest cake in the Soviet Union to get hold of, and what a good one does in the mouth.
· 6 min read
Classic Russian Desserts You Can Find in London
Most of these were invented in state factories and restaurants between the 1950s and the 1970s, which is a stranger origin story than most cakes have.
· 8 min read
Kruszonka: the Streusel Topping That Makes the Bun
Kruszonka is four ingredients rubbed together in under two minutes, and it decides whether a fruit bun holds up or goes soggy. Here is the ratio, the two ways it fails, and what a crumble lid does that a glaze cannot.
· 5 min read
Cakes and Pastries for Family Gatherings
A family gathering is the hardest room to order for, because the age range is wider than at any other kind of party and nobody agrees.
· 8 min read
Making Jagodzianki at Home, and Why They Are Harder Than They Look
A working recipe for Polish blueberry buns: dough quantities, two proves, how to thicken the fruit and seal a bun so it does not burst. Then an honest account of the three things that go wrong in a domestic oven.
· 6 min read
How to Plan a Dessert Table
A dessert table is a different problem from a cake. It has to look generous from across a room and still look presentable two hours later.
· 7 min read
An Eastern European Bakery in London: What to Order First
Six things worth ordering first from a small Belgravia kitchen that bakes Russian, Polish and Ukrainian classics to order, with prices, notice times and who each one suits.
· 6 min read
Dessert Gift Ideas for Delivery
Sending food is a good gift and an easy one to get wrong. Most of the mistakes come from not picturing what happens after the box is opened.
· 7 min read
Ordering Jagodzianki for Offices and Parties
Boxes of four, a meeting of eight, a party of twenty: how many blueberry buns a room actually eats, why they survive three hours on a table better than a cream cake, and how to order enough with 24 hours' notice.
· 5 min read
Bread, and Why We Only Bake It on Wednesdays
Bread is the only thing we make on a fixed day, and the reason is that good bread and a day of cakes cannot share an oven or a schedule.
· 6 min read
Blueberry Buns for Breakfast and Brunch in London
In Poland a blueberry bun and a glass of kefir is a whole breakfast, and the sourness of the drink against the sweet dough is the point. Here is how that translates to a Sunday table in London, and what to add when four buns are not enough.
· 5 min read
Choux Pastries for Parties and Gifts
Choux is the only pastry that is cooked twice before it is baked, and it is also the one with the shortest working life once filled.
· 8 min read
What Makes a Good Jagodzianka: Six Things to Judge
Poland ranks these buns every July, and with reason: most of what is sold as a blueberry bun fails on one of six counts. Here is what we judge, and where we stand on each.
· 5 min read
Traditional Cookies and Biscuits
Biscuits are the only thing we make that improves from being ignored for a day, which makes them the most useful thing to have in the house.
· 7 min read
How to Store and Warm Blueberry Buns
The fridge stales a bun faster than the kitchen counter, a paper bag beats a plastic box, and ten minutes in a moderate oven undoes most of a day's ageing. Practical keeping and warming notes for enriched buns.
· 5 min read
Cinnamon Rolls and Sweet Buns
The difference between a good cinnamon roll and a disappointing one is almost entirely about time, and it happens before anything goes in the oven.
· 6 min read
Jagodzianki, Vatrushki and Plyushki: Sweet Buns Compared
One enriched dough, three answers: closed around fruit, open around curd, or folded and sugared with nothing inside. What each bun is for, when it is eaten, and which one survives a lunchbox.
· 5 min read
Tarts and Tartlets for Delivery
A tart and a cake do different jobs at a table. The difference is mostly about how they get served and who has to do the serving.
· 7 min read
Jagodzianki and the Polish Baking Year in London
Pączki in February, mazurek at Easter, jagodzianki when the berries come, makowiec at Christmas. A guide to the Polish baking calendar, and an honest account of where our own range meets it.
· 6 min read
Light and Fruity Cakes for Celebrations
There are occasions where a dense buttercream cake is simply wrong, and it gets admired and left. These are the ones to order instead.
· 7 min read
Blueberry Pastries in London: a Guide to What Is Worth Ordering
Blueberries behave differently in every kind of pastry: a yeasted bun soaks up the juice, laminated dough resists it, a tart sets it and a muffin waters it down. Here is what that means for what is worth buying in London.
· 5 min read
Esterházy Cake: A Gluten Free Option
Most gluten free cake is a normal cake with the flour taken out and something else put in. Esterházy never had flour in it, which is a different thing entirely.
· 6 min read
Jagodzianki Season: When to Eat Blueberry Buns
In Poland the jagodzianka season runs from July to August, when the bilberries are picked in the forests. Here is what that means for a bakery in London, why frozen fruit from those same forests is often the better choice, and what we bake in February instead.
· 5 min read
Chocolate Cakes and Desserts to Order
People who ask for a chocolate cake want quite different things. Some want richness, some want the flavour, and the two point in opposite directions.
· 8 min read
How Jagodzianki Are Made: Dough, Filling and Streusel
Enriched dough that has to be slack, two slow proves, fruit that will leak if you let it, and a crumble that belongs on top rather than in it. How a Polish blueberry bun is actually built, and what can go wrong at each stage.
· 5 min read
What to Serve for Afternoon Tea at Home
Afternoon tea at home usually fails in one of two ways. Either there is far too much of it, or it all arrives at once and nobody knows where to start.
· 6 min read
Bilberries and Blueberries: the Fruit Inside a Jagodzianka
A jagodzianka bleeds purple because the wild bilberry is purple all the way through. Here is how that berry differs from the punnet blueberry, and what the difference does to a bun.
· 5 min read
Dessert Delivery for Special Occasions
Different occasions want different desserts, and the mismatch is usually obvious. A guide to what suits what, including the difficult ones.
· 7 min read
Where to Buy Jagodzianki in London
Three ways to get Polish blueberry buns in London, what each one costs you, and how to tell a bun filled with fruit from one filled with jam before you hand over the money.
· 6 min read
Pirozhki in London: A Guide to the Fillings
Six fillings, and people are rarely neutral about any of them. What each one actually tastes like and which to order if you have never had one.
· 8 min read
What Are Jagodzianki? Polish Blueberry Buns, Explained
Sweet yeast dough, a handful of wild bilberries and a crumble lid. What a jagodzianka actually is, why Poles argue about the season, and how our blueberry streusel buns compare.
· 5 min read
Traditional Pastries to Order in London
These are the things that get ordered with a note attached saying somebody’s grandmother used to make them. Here is what they actually are.
· 5 min read
Large Celebration Cakes for Events
A big cake is not a small cake made bigger. Some recipes scale beautifully, some collapse, and the portion maths surprises almost everyone.
· 5 min read
Planning a Wedding Cake Consultation
A wedding cake consultation is not a tasting with a decision attached. Most of the useful work happens before anyone picks up a fork.
· 5 min read
Cakes and Pastries for Office Events
Ordering for an office is a different problem from ordering for a dinner. Nobody sits down, nothing gets served, and half of it goes at eleven o’clock.
· 5 min read
How to Choose a Birthday Cake
Most people choose a birthday cake by looking at pictures until one appeals. There is a better order to do it in, and it starts with the guest list.
· 5 min read
A Small Bakery in Belgravia
We are not a shop and you cannot walk in and buy a cake. Here is why it works that way, and what you get in exchange for the inconvenience.
· 5 min read
Traditional Eastern European Cakes to Try in London
Six cakes with unfamiliar names, explained properly. What each one actually tastes like, where it came from, and which to start with.
· 6 min read
Where to Order Napoleon Cake in London
There are two Napoleons, and people are usually loyal to whichever one they grew up with. This explains the split and where ours falls.
· 5 min read
Honey Cake in London: A Guide to Medovik
Medovik is the cake we are asked for more than anything else. Here is where it came from, how it is built, and what separates a good one from a disappointing one.
· 5 min read
Where to Order Fresh Cakes and Pastries in London
Almost every bakery in London describes its cakes as fresh. Very few explain what they mean by it, so here is what the word covers and what it hides.