Russian Doll Matryoshka theme party

For the past few years I've had a theme for my birthday party because I think it's fun to make a cake and decorate the room and find a few props that all work together. I love Russian dolls and decided this year to have that as a theme for my birthday party. It's a theme that would work well for adults or children and I'll try to give a few ideas here.

It's actually quite easy to make a birthday cake in the shape of a Russian doll; this is a vodka and lime cake though you could easily make a different flavour for children and decorate it in the same way. See the blog post I did on the cake here.

I had this set of three Russian doll decorative boxes that I bought from Paperchase a couple of years ago. I used them as decorations on the table - I always think it's a good idea to arrange things at different heights, e.g. cakes on a cake stand, and if you have any props that draw the eye upwards as well. I used the front of the boxes to stand up on the table and used the inside of the boxes (lined with greaseproof paper) to serve crisps.

I made some chocolate cupcakes, which happened to be vegan, and decorated them with printed sugar paper that I bought over the internet. You can find the recipe for the cupcakes here.

Here are the cupcakes on a cake stand on the dessert table.

I also made some sugar cookies, which again were vegan, and decorated them to look like Russian dolls - at least I tried to! It was a messy job and I didn't have a huge amount of time, so I'm not particularly pleased with how these turned out but they tasted ok. An idea for a party, that would work well for older children, is to give each guest a few plain cookies and allow them to decorate them. You could even turn it into a competition!

I bought a table cloth with a Russian doll print from Ebay which I used to cover my dining room table. I did look online to see if I could find any disposable tableware (e.g. paper plates and cups) with a suitable design, but I couldn't find anything.

I happened to have an umbrella with a Russian doll design (from Totes via Tesco) and also some A4 filing boxes from Paperchase, which I use to store recipe cuttings. I stood one of the boxes up on the table to provide some height, and used the other one laid on its side and arranged the sugar cookies on top.

Here you can see everything on the table. If you look closely at the red and yellow items behind the main cake, you'll see a set of traditional matryoshka Russian stacking dolls - I bought these in Moscow and used them as an additional table decoration. In the bottom right of the photo is another set of Russian dolls, also from Moscow, but rather than women these dolls actually look like different Russian presidents and leaders (including Lenin, Stalin and Putin) and they are even wearing little hats.

 Here's a close up of the cake, cookies and Russian dolls. On the right of the photo you can also see a (fake) Faberge egg - the Kremlin has the world's largest collection of Faberge eggs, which I saw when I was there, and I bought this as a souvenir.

The cupcakes and crisps served inside my Russian doll boxes, with the umbrella in the background.

I wanted the meal I served to have a Russian theme as well, and looked for suitable recipes online. I needed something people could eat with their fingers or from plates on their laps and something where I could make vegan and meat versions without going to too much effort. I found a recipe for Russian shashlik kebabs which fitted the bill perfectly; you can read the blog post about how I made them here.

I made baked potatoes to go with it, which I filled with sour cream and caviar, for another Russian touch. Some people at the party had never eaten caviar before so it was quite fun to be able to let them try it.

And if the food was Russian, the drinks had to be too.. I was aware of a cocktail called a White Russian and decided to see if I could find any others. In the end I found about eight or nine and wrote up a 'cocktail menu'. I got the template for the menu from a website called I Do It Yourself, where you can print your own stationery - this template was actually free of charge. Each page was divided into three columns, with a cocktail menu header and picture of a drink at the bottom, but for some reason it would only allow me to duplicate the text across each column - what I wanted to do was put a different cocktail recipe in each column so there would be three to a page. As I couldn't work out how to do it I ended up writing them by hand!

The cocktail menus were a good idea as guests were able to choose what they wanted to drink - and I had a reminder of how to make them! All the recipes I found involved vodka so I bought a bottle of Russian Standard vodka, though you could also make non-alcoholic versions.

I got the recipes from various sources mainly on the internet. I particularly recommend the Bolshoi Basil, which tastes a little like a mojito.

Bolshoi Basil
40ml Vodka
30ml Fresh lime juice
3 Fresh basil sprigs
20ml sugar syrup
soda water

Muddle the basil and sugar syrup in a tall glass, fill with ice, add the vodka and lime juice and stir. Top up with soda water and garnish with a sprig of basil.

St Petersburg
40ml vodka
1/2 tsp angostura bitters
1 orange wedge

Mix the vodka and bitters, squeeze in the orange wedge and use as a garnish


Moscow Mule
40ml vodka
20ml lime juice
ginger beer
lime wedge

Mix the vodka and lime juice, top up with ginger beer and garnish with a lime wedge

Cossack Crush
40ml vodka
1 tbsp fresh pomegranate seeds
10ml grenadine
pomegranate juice

Mash pomegranate seeds and add with ice to a cocktail shaker. Shake well, add the vodka and grenadine and shake again. Strain into a glass and top up with pomegranate juice.

White Russian
40ml vodka
40ml Kahlua
cream or milk

Fill a glass with ice cubes. Pour the the vodka then Kahlua into the glass and top up with single cream or milk.


Black Russian
40ml vodka
40ml Kahlua

As above but straight without the cream or milk.

I think the cocktails were the best part of the evening, along with the birthday cake of course!

I am sharing this with the readers of Cooking Around The World; Chris hosts a challenge called Bloggers Around the World and this month is asking for Russian-inspired recipes. There are plenty here to be going on with!

Russian Dolls Matryoshka Birthday Card

Just to finish off my recent run of Russian doll-themed posts, here's a cute birthday card I made for my sister. You could also use this design as an invitation to a Russian doll-themed party. The stickers came in a pack from Morrisons and as far as I remember the bird sticker was in the same pack with the dolls. I covered a white card blank with polka dot paper and stuck two pieces of sticky ribbon along the bottom to make a double border. I put a 'happy birthday' outline sticker in the middle.

Russian Doll Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

Regular readers of my blog will remember that my birthday cake this year was shaped like a Russian doll. As one of my friends is vegan I made these vegan Russian doll sugar cookies but I also wanted there to be some cake she could eat, so I made some vegan cupcakes to go with it. I found some Russian doll edible ricepaper pictures online and thought they would be really cute on the top of cupcakes.

I used this recipe for a vegan chocolate cake from a website called Instructables.com. It claims to be the best chocolate cake ever, that just happens to be vegan - it did taste amazing!

You need:

1 1/4 cups plain flour

1 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup warm water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp distilled white or apple cider vinegar - though I didn't have any and used white wine vinegar and it turned out great.

For the buttercream:

Vegan margarine eg Pure, Vitalite

Vegan dark chocolate

Icing sugar

To make the cake, mix the dry ingredients

Then add the wet ingredients, beating after each addition. Pretty simple really!

Spoon into cupcake cases - I got 11 out of this mixture

Bake for 15-20 mins at 180C. They are ready when they are risen but still springy to the touch.

I bought Kinnerton dark chocolate as it was in the gluten-free/vegan/special diet section of Sainsburys and I had read that its chocolate was vegan. However, I've since realised that a lot of plain chocolate is vegan and that there's no need to buy a specialist brand. Still, this seemed a decent bar of chocolate. I melted it in the microwave though you could use a bain-marie if you prefer.

Cream the vegan margarine (I used Vitalite) with enough icing sugar until you get the right consistency then add the melted chocolate. If it's too runny you might then need to add more icing sugar. I don't tend to use set quantities when I make buttercream and just add enough icing sugar until I get the mixture as stiff as I want.

Pipe swirls onto the top of the cupcakes. I used red metallic cupcake cases (though can't remember where I bought them) as I thought they would work well with the Russian theme. The cases held their shape and colour really well and looked good.

I bought this piece of rice paper online; I had to cut out around the dolls myself but that didn't take long. The paper was fairly thick so I knew the dolls would be able to stand up by themselves on the top of each cupcake.

Here's what I mean

And here are all the cupcakes in one of my many cake stands. They looked pretty good alongside the main cake and were so popular that by the time I went over to try one, there was only one left!

Russian Dolls Matryoshka Vegan Sugar Cookies

I made some cookies to go along with my Russian doll birthday cake though the decorating was a bit hit and miss! Yes, I did these, not my friend's four-year-old daughter... 

I wanted to make sure the cookies were suitable for a vegan friend so I found a vegan sugar cookie recipe on the internet, here at Vegan Baking.net.

You need:

1/3 cup water

2 tbsp golden flax meal - I used some finely milled flax seed I had from Holland & Barrett

3 3/4 cups plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup vegan margarine

2 cups icing sugar

3 tbsp non-dairy milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

3/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180C. Cream the margarine and icing sugar and then mix in the flax meal.

Then mix in the flour and baking powder

Then add the milk, vanilla and almond extract and the salt.

Finally mix in the water. Knead the resulting mixture together, wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for at least half an hour.

I bought these Russian doll cookie cutters from Lakeland a while ago and was looking forward to trying them out.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and use the cutters to cut out shapes.

Place on a lined baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes.

Place on a wire rack to cool.

I didn't take many photos as I was decorating as I got in quite a mess! I did want to show you these however: I bought two packs of mini piping bags over the internet. You can make your own from greaseproof paper but I find it really tricky and they weren't expensive to buy. They are quite small so you only get a couple of spoonfuls of icing in each one, but it's great for doing delicate work.

I mixed some different colours with royal icing and decorated the cookies to look like Russian dolls. I ran out of time towards the end which is why some are quite plain, and I have to admit the designs aren't great - my piping work didn't turn out too badly though, which was good as I think this is only the second time I have decorated sugar cookies!

These were a nice addition to the table alongside my Russian doll birthday cake.

I'm sending these to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen of Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked, as their theme this month is biscuits and cookies.

 

Russian Doll Matryoshka Birthday Cake

For the past few years I've chosen a theme for my birthday party and made a cake and other treats to fit in with the theme. This year I wanted to make a cake based on a Russian doll, or matryoshka - I've loved them ever since I went to Moscow a couple of years ago and have several things in my house with that design. I also thought it would be a fairly simple but effective design for a birthday cake. I have to give a hat tip to Alys Cakes and Bakes for the design and decorating idea.

I also remembered having seen a similar sort of cake in Fiona Cairns' Birthday Cake Book, though the cakes look quite different - Fiona gives instructions for how to carve the cakes so they stand up, and makes a selection of varying sizes (like the dolls which stack inside each other). She also decorates them with a paintbrush and edible colours, but I wanted to make a flat cake and preferred to cover it with coloured fondant.

I did use the recipe for the actual cake from the Fiona Cairns book though as I thought it would fit in well with the Russian theme and make a nice change from chocolate.

Lime and Vodka Syrup Cake

I doubled the quantities below to make two cakes to sandwich together.

100g butter

250g self-raising flour

30g cornflour

pinch of salt

4 eggs

300g caster sugar

grated zest and juice of 1 lime

150g creme fraiche

For the syrup:

2 tbsp sugar syrup (or make your own by melting sugar into the other ingredients below)

1 tbsp vodka

juice of half a lime

For the buttercream:

100g butter

100g icing sugar

juice of half a lime

1 tbsp vodka

Preheat the oven to 160C. Break the eggs into a mixing bowl - I was glad to be able to use my KitchenAid as this made it a lot easier!

Juice your lime

Add the sugar and lime zest and juice to the eggs until light and fluffy

Fold in the creme fraiche

Then beat in the flour, cornflour and salt. Melt the butter and beat that in as well.

I decided to cook the cake mixture in a medium-sized roasting pan as I wanted a flat sheet cake I could cut out. It took about an hour to bake - the recipe recommends 50-60 minutes but it will depend on your oven and the size/depth of your cake tin.

Here's the cooked cake - just the right size.

I then made the same quantity of cake again (as I realised one would not be enough) and allowed them both to cool.

I have these three decorative boxes from Paperchase sitting on my bedroom windowsill. I decided to use the large one as a template and cut the cake out following the shape of the doll.

I sat the top part of the box on the cake and carefully cut around it.

I wanted to use the leftover cake from around the edges to make cake pops like these Russian doll cake pops like these, but I didn't have time.

To make the syrup, you can make your own sugar syrup but I managed to get this bottle from Tesco, which was only a few pounds and came in very handy when we made cocktails later!

And here's some vodka...

... and I used bottled lime juice for the syrup as I decided at this point to save the rest of the limes for cocktails as well! I don't have a picture but I just mixed those three ingredients and used a silicon pastry brush to brush the syrup over the top and sides of the cake.

I made buttercream by mixing butter and icing sugar then adding a little lime juice and vodka.

I spread buttercream between the two layers of cake then a thin coating on the top and sides of the cake.

Now for the decorating... I took a block of white sugarpaste - about 200g - and some blue food colouring (I  prefer to use gel or paste than a liquid colouring as the colour is more vibrant and it isn't so runny).

I kneaded the blue colouring into the sugar paste and rolled it out.

I used the blue sugarpaste to cover the bottom two-thirds of the cake, then coloured some more sugarpaste pink and covered the top part of the cake. I cut the bottom of the pink sugarpaste so it would look like the bottom of a shawl around the doll's neck - you'll see what I mean later.

This is a cute little mould I bought over the internet, intending to use it for another cake, but I realised it would come in handy here. I pressed a small piece of the leftover pink sugarpaste into the mould to make a mouth.

I wanted to decorate the bottom part of the doll - her dress - with flowers. I have a set of different-sized cutters and used yellow and white sugarpaste for contrast. I stuck the flowers on with edible glue.

I cut out a circle of white sugarpaste for the face, and made cheeks and eyes out of small pieces of sugarpaste, then added the lips and some hair.

I also found some Russian doll ribbon on Ebay and bought a length, which I put around the bottom of the cake.

And here's the cake!

It tasted delicious - really light and the flavour of the lime came through with a more subtle hint of vodka. I was really pleased with the way it turned out!

This month's No Waste Food Challenge has using up leftover spirits and cordials as its theme, and while that's not why I made this cake, it does use vodka and I guess if you had a bottle knocking around in the cupboard and couldn't think of anything to do with it* you could make this cake!
*Or if you want a better idea of what to do with vodka I'll be posting some cocktail recipes soon!

The No Waste Food Challenge is hosted by Kate at Turquoise Lemons.