Traditional Russian Dessert Recipes

You'll love these traditional Russian dessert recipes. The Russian people are known worldwide for their fabulous dessert cakes and pastries, and the traditional Russian Blini Punch Tart are no exception. You'll find all the easy-to-make desserts below.

Traditional Russian Dessert Recipes

Allied Cookery (1916)

Russian Blini / Thin Crepe-Like Pancakes

Mix together 2-1/2 cups of tepid milk, 4 cups of flour with 1/2 a yeast cake and put in a warm place to rise 6 or 8 hours.

One hour before cooking add 2 cups of warm milk and 1 tablespoon of salt.

Fry like ordinary pan cakes. Serve very hot one on top of the other, well buttered.

Blini are often spread with soured cream, and smoked salmon or caviar is usually served with them. They are also quite delicious topped with jam or honey.

Kissel / Soft, Fruit-Based Dessert

Mix three cups of any kind of fruit syrup, add a little water if the syrup is very thick, sugar and vanilla according to taste, and 1/2 cup of potato flour.

Cook them in a double boiler until a very thick cream. Served hot or cold with cream and powdered sugar.

Traditional Russian Dessert Recipes

Mom's Recipe Scrapbooks (c. 1920s)

Honey Mousse Dessert

Ingredients: 1-1/2 cups honey, 4 eggs, separated. Beat the egg yolks and add the honey gradually until completely mixed.

Cook the mixture over a slow fire, stirring constantly, until the mass thickens, then remove from fire and cool.

Next, beat the egg whites until very stiff and combine thoroughly with the honey mixture. Spoon the mousse into serving dishes and chill. Instead of egg whites, whipped cream may be used. Smooth, creamy, and delicious!

Rice Pudding

Mix cold boiled rice with the juice and rind of a lemon, 1 cup of sugar, and 1/2 glass of fine rum; then press into a mold. Let get very cold and serve with cold cooked fruit. —365 Foreign Dishes

Traditional Russian Dessert Recipe

La Cuisine Francaise (1893)

Kissel a la Russe

Ingredients: 2 quarts cranberries, 1/2 pound sugar, 4 tablespoonfuls cornstarch (or potato starch), 1 pint cream.

Preparation:

1. Press the cranberries or raspberries through a cloth napkin, pour their juice in a saucepan with 1/2 pound sugar, add 4 tablespoonfuls cornstarch mixed with 1 glassful water, boil the whole for 5 minutes.

2. Pour in a hollow dish and let cool. Serve with cream apart. For five persons. Makes a popular Russian Christmas dessert.

Traditional Russian Dessert Recipe

Aunt Babette's Cook Book (1889)

Russian Lemon Tea

Lay a slice of lemon in the bottom of each cup, sprinkle with sugar, and pour hot, strong tea over it. Use no cream. It's the perfect hot beverage to serve with a Russian dessert.

Russian Punch Tart

Bake three layers of sponge cake dough, and flavor it with a wineglassful of arrack (Eastern name for any spirituous liquor).

When baked, scrape part of the cake out of the thickest layer, not disturbing the rim, and reserve these crumbs to add to the following filling:

Boil half a pound of sugar in a quarter of a cup of water until it stands. Add to this syrup a wineglassful of rum and the crumbs, and spread over the layers, piling one on top of the other. Frost the cake with a nice boiled icing, flavored with rum.

Another way to fill this cake is to take some crabapple jelly or apple marmalade and thin it with a little brandy. If you haven’t either, make a filling of the following:

Grate a large tart apple, add the grated peel of a lemon, one egg, and one cup of sugar. Let this boil five minutes steadily, stirring all the time, and flavor with rum.

Spread between layers, and frost with boiled icing, flavored with rum.

Russian Boiled Icing

Take one cup of sugar to the beaten white of one egg. Put the sugar on to boil with two tablespoons of water. When this has boiled clear pour on the beaten white of the egg, stirring constantly until cold. Flavor.

Traditional Russian Dessert Recipes

With a Saucepan Over the Sea (1902)

Crispy Russian Cake

Mix the yolks of 5 eggs and 1/4 pound sugar; add slowly 3 ounces flour, 2 ounces chopped almonds, a spoonful of anise seed, and the whites of eggs beaten stiff.

Bake in long narrow tins lined with paper, cut in slices, and dry in the oven until crisp, before serving.

Sweet Russian Biscuits

Mix 1/2 pound of sifted flour with 1 ounce of sugar, a pinch of salt, a spoonful of caraway seed, and 1/2 pint of milk or cream.

Beat all well, roll out thin, cut into 32 oblong strips, and bake 6 minutes in a hot oven (425°F). Eat cold, with salad or cheese or stewed fruit.

About the Traditional Russian Dessert Recipes

You'll love the delicate honey mousse made only with eggs and honey, and the totally tasty Kissel a la Russe with its sweetened cranberries is especially easy to make. This traditional dish was created by the renowned Francois Tanty, Chef to Czar Nicholas II of Russia.

The cranberry kissel is the maybe most famous Russian kissel, also spelled kisel. It makes an excellent cranberry dessert to serve at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or on any special occasion. Imagine. Desserts fit for your imperial family!

Celebrating With Russian Desserts

The Russian people are especially generous and welcoming, and they love to celebrate occasions with all manners of delicious baked goods and pastries.

Pastry shop shelves are filled with irresistible confectionery and immense layer cakes with creamy fruity fillings, wholly smothered in fluffy whipped cream.

My 49th birthday happened to fall on the day we visited a Russian orphanage in St. Petersburg, while on a mission trip to Russia. A birthday party was held for myself and three orphanage children who also had birthdays that same week.

The surprise occasion was celebrated with savory treats, homemade cookies, flaky fruit-filled pastries, and irresistible cream cakes, all made by the children with ingredients donated by the volunteer workers.

An elderly Russian lady (seen in the photo below, wearing a blue sweater, and a babushka scarf) presented me with a homemade Russian birthday cake topped with candles. It tasted absolutely delicious, and it was greatly appreciated.

Earlier that same day, I enjoyed eating creamy pastries and drinking bold Russian coffee in a St. Petersburg coffee shop along with my wife Vicki, our then-teenage daughter, and our Russian translator (left to right in the photo below).

Sorry about the empty plates seen in the photo, but we ate all the pastries before I thought of taking the photo. By looking at the pastry display case, you can well imagine how delicious these treats tasted. They were simply too tempting to resist!

The traditional Russian dessert recipes featured on this page will allow you to sample some of the delicious dessert treats that are characteristic of Old Russia. Вкусный!