A little Russian "contraband" + Zimov's favorite desserts (Part 1)
This week I have been to Varna - ✨the "sea capital" of Bulgaria✨ - because of my medical situation. I went with my amazing uncle and on the way we visited our Russian friends who live there. They are such kindhearted, soulful people! 🫶
Right now we are in Iron Curtain 2.0 and in Bulgaria there are no Russian products and you can't order anything from Russia. So, whenever my friends go back to their country, they "smuggle" me some Russian goods. 👀 Sweets, of course, but knowing my medical situation, my love for comics and corvids, this time they had bought me a WHOLE collection of comics from a Russian studio as a gift to cheer me up! 🥺🥺🥺
But more about that on my main blog - @vranelartbg. 👀
Here, I thought it would be fun to show you the sweets I got and use the oprotunity to tell you about Zimov's HUGE sweet tooth (he takes it from me) and his favorite desserts.
First, here is the "contraband" in question! From left to right we have Sgushchyonka (Сгущёнка), Sufael (Суфаэль) and Aeroflot (Аэрофлот) chocolates. Sufael are these soufflé-based candies. It's a soft, airy center surrounded by a wafer, then covered in chocolate and crushed nuts.
These small squares are the iconic Aeroflot (Russia's national airline) branded chocolates, typically given to passengers during flights. Aeroflot is one of the oldest airlines in the world, founded in 1923 and was the state-owned (and only) airline of the USSR. During the USSR, flying was a massive luxury. Similar chocolates were given out during flights and became a symbol of status and "seeing the world".
The chocolates I got have a much more modern packaging and design. On the package we have the flight attendants (Valeria Aleksashina and Anastasia Yablokova) and the routes: Moscow to Phuket and Moscow to Bangkok. They had a small intricate drawing of a sight in the city the flight was going to and on the back of the chocolate there was a repeated pattern of the Aeroflot logo—the "winged hammer and sickle". Even though the USSR collapsed, Aeroflot kept the winged hammer and sickle as their official brand symbol.
Here are some packages from the past:
Next we have the heart and soul of why I am making this post in the first place... 👀 Sgushchyonka (Сгущёнка)! For the one I was gifted (right) it's more acurrated to say Varyonka (Варёнка). Varyonka is Zimov's most favorite thing in the world!
Now let me give you a bit of lore for these legendary tins.
Sgushchyonka (Сгущёнка): This is standard Sweetened Condensed Milk. In the USSR, it came in that iconic blue and white tin (the first image). It’s white, runny, and intensely sweet.
Varyonka (Варёнка): This is "Boiled" condensed milk. Nowadays, you can buy it pre-caramelized (the second image, the one I was gifted), but in the 70s, pre-made Varyonka didn't exist on shelves. If you wanted that thick, brown, toffee-like goodness, you had to engineer it yourself. 👀
Back in Zimov's time, making Varyonka was a 3-hour commitment and suspense. Here is the process:
You take a sealed tin of Sgushchyonka, remove the paper label, and place it in a large pot of water.
The water must always cover the top of the can.
You simmer it on the stove for 2 to 4 hours. Through the Maillard reaction, the milk inside the sealed can slowly turns into thick, dark caramel.
HOWEVER...If you get distracted (very easy for us ADHD folks 👀!) and the water boils away, the pressure inside the tin builds until...the tin explodes like a grenade!!! A deafening BANG followed by the entire kitchen being "painted" in scalding, sticky, brown caramel. It hits the ceiling. It gets behind the wallpaper. It stays there for years. Many people who lived during those times have a story about a "mysterious brown stain" on the kitchen ceiling that their parents never managed to fully scrub off. 😁
Now, onto Zimov's sweet tooth!
Zimov absolutely adores caramel. And thus the Varyonka is his go to dessert. He eats it straight from the tin with a spoon, which is the superior way to do it! 😤 Since he is a great cook, he has mastered the art of boiling it in a perfect way. But don't think that he didn't have his accidents...👀
Zimov also loves apples! Specifically green ones! 🍏 In the USSR, there was a very popular variety of apple called Antonovka. They were famous for being incredibly tart, bright green, and having a fragrance that could fill an entire room. He loves eating them or putting them into every dessert he can make. One of his favorite desserts with apples is the Soviet Sharlotka (Шарлотка). While a French Charlotte is fancy, the USSR Sharlotka was defined by its extreme minimalism. It was the ultimate "nothing in the fridge" dessert. It’s was a sponge cake - light, airy, and bouncy, with a crackly, sugary crust on top. In a good Sharlotka, there are actually more apples than there is cake. The batter acts as a "glue" to hold the fruit together.
🍏 Zimov’s "3-3-1" Sharlotka Recipe:
Since Zimov is an incredible cook, he sticks to the classic Soviet golden ratio:
A mountain of Green Apples
You beat the eggs and sugar until they are white and frothy, fold in the flour, pour it over a pile of sliced apples, and bake.
Other favorite recipes from Zimov's kitchen include:
🍏 The "Baked Apple" (Печёное яблоко)
You core a tart green apple but leave the bottom intact. Zimov fills the center with a mix of walnuts and a spoonful of his Varyonka, but in the original recipe, people use honey. You bake it until the skin just starts to wrinkle and burst. It turns the apple into a natural "bowl" of warm, jam-like fruit.
🍏 Apple Oladi (Яблочные оладьи)
These are thick, small pancakes. Instead of just putting apples on top, Zimov cuts the green apples directly into the kefir-based batter. Since he likes thin slices, he skips the grater and instead dips paper-thin apple rings into the batter and fries them, so he gets a hidden "apple heart" inside every pancake. He serves them with a massive dollop of sour cream (Smetana) or more condensed milk.
Now, lets end it here, because this post became a bit heavy with images and recipes! 👀 But I have one more thing I did for today that I want to show you. It's a fun little comic strip, that you can check out here on this separate post! Btw, don't mind the Content Lable Tumblr gave it. I have no idea why. Probably because it mistook something that happens for fun for something more disturbing than it is. I promise there is nothing that much disturbing happening. 👀
Thank you so much for diving into Soviet sweets and Zimov's sweet tooth with me! 🫶
