I’m having one of those days. Actually it has been one of those weeks. I didn’t even know what day today was – I just checked, it’s Wednesday. How?
One of the worst things about copyedits is that it requires you to make a chain of instant decisions. Replace this word or not. Clarify this sentence or not. Decide, look at the next comment, decide, rinse and repeat. It’s remarkable how quickly making a bunch of quick decisions leads to fatigue.
I feel like I am dealing with a life’s version of a copyedit. Every time I turn around, there are either admin tasks or family problems, all of it requiring decisions. It’s like life has been firing tennis balls at me at top speed from different directions. I tried making a list of things to do and gave up.
Instead, I am going to bring you this odd dessert. One of my friends ran into a Ukrainian woman at a fair, tried this dessert, and emailed me to ask me what it is.
In the former USSR, this was called kartoshka, meaning potato, named so not because it contains potatoes, but because the finished product looks like one. This is a great dessert to make with small kids as it requires no baking.
This dessert originated as means of using leftovers in public bakeries. Once the cakes and cookies have been baked, unused cuts of the cake sponge and broken cookies were ground into crumbs and repurposed for this “cookie.” The texture is moist and almost fudge-like.
There are two basic recipes for kartoshka. The first involves baking a basic white cake sponge – box cake will do great and then pulsing it in a food processor. The second involves graham crackers or an assortment of your favorite cookies, once again pulsed into a coarse crumb. The cookies should be relatively dry, like shortbread or sugar cookies. Moist chocolate chip or oat cookies will not work well.
Traditionally, this recipe also called for 2 Tbsp of cognac. I leave the liquor choices up to you.
Basic recipe:
2 1/2 – 3 cups of cookie crumbs (or crumbled cake sponges)
8 oz of butter
14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
5 tbsp of cocoa powder (and some for dusting)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup walnuts (or pecans or almond) crumbs or just a cup of nuts that you can dump into food processor. You could technically even have them in chunks, if that’s your preference.
1 pinch of salt
Preparation:
Cream butter with a mixer. Add condensed milk. Cream some more. Add vanilla and cocoa powder. Cream some more. Dump everything else into it. Mix until you made a brown mess. The mixture should clump together easily. Form into potato-shaped lumps, dust with cocoa powder, chill a bit, serve.
Here are some recipes from the internet with detailed how to:
Cake sponge version – Valya’s Taste of Home and Olga’s Flavor Factory.
Cookie version – That’s What She Had and Dished (this is a video, and her kartoshka needed a little bit more cookie crumbs. It was looking slightly too moist. Also, don’t roll these in cocoa, sift the cocoa on top instead. Cocoa powder tends to be bitter when thick.)
That looks delicious! Great with a hot drink.
Those sound wonderfully decadent!
I wonder if those little round vanilla wafers would work. I’ve used those in no-bake Christmas cookies before.
What sweet isn’t better with tea? I subscribe to a newsletter from the American Nurses Association that keeps me up to date on random medical news. Here is one that says a study found that green tea helps cognitive performance. PLEASE remember that one study does not make a fact. Additional studies are need to corroborate the findings. But one study can be interesting to consider.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/roasted-green-tea-a-japanese-staple-could-boost-cognitive-performance
I would need an ocean of tea to improve my cognitive function at the moment. Hehehe. 🙂
I’m with you on needing a Pacific Ocean of green tea right now.
Seriously.
Oh this look yummy and eaay to do!
Thank you
I love new (to me) desserts! Now I’m sad because I’m all out of energy to make anything AND I don’t even have cookies in the cupboard to smash.
I think you deserve a break and a treat! Decision making is exhausting!
I see your week Ilona, and raise you one. Ever so occasionally I have a “technology week” where pretty much everything that shouldn’t go wrong does. This has been one of those weeks. Today I got a notice that my password expired on the financial system that our school uses–easy enough, right? Two very frustrating hours later I finally got the $&#@ thing changed. It required not two or three factor authentication, but four factor. And included a step where I had to download a QR code reader to a personal device. Good thing the gym is nearby…
This sounds like the old classic rum balls in the UK, which my nan used to make – and you used to see way more of in bakeries when I was younger (1980s) but now I don’t remember when I last had one.
You use leftover cake or buns, or crushed up wafers or biscuits, then it’s nearly the same recipe but without the butter and vanilla. You just use condensed cream and cocoa powder and lots of rum or, in my nan’s case brandy (brown rum not being a house tipple!)
Smoosh it all up to a fudgy paste then roll into biggish balls and roll them in chocolate vermicelli. Presto!
You could buy rum balls in loads of shops when I was younger, I wonder why it died out?
I was thinking the same! I wonder if it was because using the ‘waste’ crumbs was a food safety issue or at least someone (an insurance company perhaps) thought it might be one? Or maybe people stopped giving cakes with alcohol in to children . . . but I’d have thought there were enough adults around who enjoyed them.
I was thinking about this and maybe it’s all about rationing (or rather the rise of luxury goods and excess income)?
After writing this I looked up rum balls and it turns out roughly the same recipe base is across Europe – where pretty much every country endured food rationing even as early as WW1 and then interwar economic upheaval etc etc.
It would make sense when sweet goods are a luxury not to waste anything; and that using up every scrap was essential so you would end up with this type of recipe to use up leftovers with whatever you have handy. And of course the scars of war do not just disappear.
Then as the 1970s & 80s (& 1992 onwards) progressed and Europe & former USSR developed stronger economic standings and you ger generations started to forget their hardships and looked for more luxurious treats, everyone forgets about the old favourites until the day nostalgia comes along and smacks them in the face. Like so. At least my theory. 😉
Mum made it with the biscuits loosely crushed (some fairly big chunks), without the rum but with the butter and flattened into a traybake. We only had it in early November on Bonfire Night, hence our small village always knew it as Bonfire Cake. It was an evening sugar rush!
Very cool cake. Perfect to make with leftover birthday cake when you have had a big birthday party
Uhm, yum. All I can say. My doctor would look and say “Cheryl, remember we are working on your cholesterol.” Le sigh.
Reminds me of icebox cake. The cake isn’t shaped into a potato.
I am with everyone having a week. I’m working on quality reports for 20 hospitals in Excel templates before they’re printed into pdf. If I change one thing on one, all the other reports have to have that change. I had about 7 reports done earlier this morning when I decided to change wording under one table. Oy.
On top of that, I have to do conditional formatting. That got screwed up because I had to move two measures down a row. 🤦♀️
Is it Friday yet?????
yummy! hope you have a chance to relax soon
yum!
and I hear you. this week beat me up so bad that people are literally pushing tea and cookies at me as I walk in the door.
and there’s plenty more on the horizon …
hoping you can catch a tea break amidst the edits.
You have the most interesting ethnic foods to share! I love it. Thank you so much
Going to try these for Mothers’ Day (U.S.). Maybe a little extra cognac…
Hm. It’s sort of like a Rum Ball. 11 oz. box vanilla wafers
1 c. toasted pecans
1 c. powdered sugar
1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 c. dark rum
2 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Topping suggestions: powdered sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, finely shredded coconut, finely chopped pecans, and nonpareils
Decision making is the pits. As someone also having one of those weeks I sympathize with you. You’ve got this! You can do difficult things.
Thanks for the tasty recipe.
I saw “Potato for Dessert” and my mind immediately went to potato candy. This sounds amazing, too!
Ask the universe for a solution and it eventually appears!
I made some cookies that didn’t come out well. The flavor is fine but the texture was not good. So I ground them into a course powder and have been trying to decide what to do with the results … add the powder into new cookies? brownies? a sweet bread? something else?
Voila! here is something I can try. Thanks.
I have the tea?! Need a taste tester😜?
Just reading about the solution to your cookie query makes me happy, Kate. I hope your “potatoes” are fun and delicious!
Huh, kind of a an unbaked stroopwafel dough with cocoa. Interesting.
love the idea!
The kiddies and I will be attempting this recipe in the weekend, thanks!
Just bought some loose leaf tea! Now I need the potatoe…”ORRO” lol
I hope you are feeling better as you are tsunami-ed by life.
It seems to be one of those weeks for a few people. Including me. Why? WORK! ACK! IDIOCY! INSANE AMOUNT TO GET ACCOMPLISHED BY FRIDAY.
One of my work friends-different department, different state-same. It’s incredible. We wonder how some people walk and chew gum with all the mistakes they make at work. Or how they make it home at night without breadcrumbs to follow.
The people who are lucky that breathing is autonomic….🤦♀️
Cute and I imagine the kids would like it. Me, I’ll take the cake, just put some icing on it
I was on board with it just being “potatoes make a good dessert” post. Though the recipe looks good too. 😂
Hang on … Mercury Retrograde ends tomorrow … the energy will start lightening up enormously, and the screw-ups, break-downs, and miscommunications will also lessen back to the occasional issue. This Merc Retro hit me hard too .. this past week I had no decision-making capacity whatsoever. We’re going to have much better energy and clear-thinking starting Friday … you’ll feel it, hang in there.
Ooh, have to try this! In Denmark the left-over-bakery-cakes concept is called “student bread” – I tried it as a kid and I’ve been looking for a recipe for years.
Or “romkugler” – same dough, but shaped into small balls. Here is a translation of a recipe for those from Valdemarsro – a danish cooking site):
500 g mixed cake leftovers
200 g dark chocolate, melted
100 g marzipan, coarsely grated
2 tbsp dark rum
2 tablespoons raspberry jam
2 tablespoons almond flour, if needed
Sprinkle:
coconut flour, hazelnuts, finely chopped or coloured sprinkles
Put the cake in a food processor and process it into very fine crumbles. Melt the chocolate while stirring over a water bath at low heat.
Put the melted chocolate, marzipan, rum and jam in the food processor and process until it is a combined truffle mass. Season the truffle mass well with more jam, chocolate, rum or marzipan according to taste and preference. Knead the truffle mass with a little almond flour if it is too soft, or put it in the fridge, as it will set when the chocolate hardens.
Form rum balls of suitable size and roll them in sprinkles, coconut flour or finely chopped nuts.
Tip:
Feel free to use a mix of different cake scraps, or any delicious cake you have too much of.
If you make rum balls only with a rich chocolate cake, you can cut down on the extra chocolate and marzipan and knead the dough with almond flour instead.
To make studenterbrød, you make a shortcrust pastry – bake it – spread the truffle mass on top – put it und the fridge for an hour – take it out and put icing and sprinkles on top – voilà 🙂
This looks really yummy…I’m going to have to try it! 😋
By the way, I’m really enjoying ‘Love Bites’! Thank you again for always sharing great recommendations!💕💕💕
I can empathize about getting fatigue when the brain works hard even if the body does nothing (former engineer here who sat all day long and was terrible about exercise).
I hope the fatigue gets better as you recover from the surgery and thank you for another interesting recipe! 🤗
My cousin from South Carolina had a teen job at the local peach orchard during the frantic picking season. If it was too ripe, put in pile for local/farm stand immediate sale. Otherwise, could be shipped. She said it was AGONIZING because they wanted to ship as many as possible and you had to do it super-fast and your smell sense goes dead and she was never sure if she was rejecting the right ones, too many, or too few. But the “reject” too-ripe peaches she’d bring home were the best damn peaches ever.
We make these in my family, although they’re known as ‘spuds’ 🙂
I work in a hospital lab and work every other weekend. So every other week I work 6 days in a row. Last week I moved between apartments and had some time off to do so. Came back to work on Friday night for 4 day week. Easy peasy, right? It’s only 4 days instead of 6! It Kicked. My. Butt. I spend my day off sleeping. Here’s hoping we all have better days/weeks soon.
These sound just like Hedgehog Slice – crumbled leftover, plain or broken biscuits mixed with condensed milk, cocoa and no-cook ingredients and chilled in trays. [Icing optional] Decadent mini-bricks of yummy stuff! [Australian Bakery Classic]
Ooooh I love “potato”! Thou it’s always a round ball here in Latvia, sometimes with coconut flakes on the outside.
Went to an outside fair/market just last Sunday and one booth had it, of course bought some.
Delicious ~ 😋
We have it in Romania also. “Cartof”. Now I need one :))
It sounds like a cake pop origin story that I would like to check out.
I relate to the copy edit analogy and appreciate posts like these; gets me out of my own head a bit!
I lived in Ukraine before the war started. This was my favorite treat at the bakery near work. Thank you for helping me to remember.
This was me, and I was so stressed out thinking I needed to sign up for Medicare by the end of this month. It’s been hanging over my head and sapping my already minimal available attention for weeks. Yesterday I found out there are still months to go before the deadline. So that has made everything else on my current to-do list look that much more doable. I expect to accomplish quite a lot this week.
My father was a professional baker, and he would repurpose chocolate cakes that were broken or perhaps day old into his brownies. It was incredible.
I’m there with you. The last few weeks have been that way. But, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I hope you do too.
In my late teens and early 20s, I worked in a bakery and the bakers would make cake bars with the cakes and cookies that were about to expire – they were a baked item and didn’t have alcohol, though.
Our Hungarian cake decorator taught me how to make rum balls with cake ends.
I used the rum ball idea last Christmas to make chocolate-dipped cake balls out of a failed cake project. They turned out pretty well 🙂
I’m excited to try the kartoshka recipe. Thank you so much for sharing!
I hope life slows down for you soon💗
Thank you for the recipe, looks yummy. I have to laugh as I was really on board for a potato dessert (my family loves potatoes)!
Decision making is so exhausting- it’s always a good idea to recharge in the kitchen with something cozy! I hope you’re feeling re-energized. 💖
everything I have to do today is merely an obstacle to vanquish ahead of taking my little boy on a mommy-kiddo beach vacation just the two of us (we’re a family of four). I am dreading the slog but I will emerge victorious. my little guy is beyond excited. it helps.
I get the decision making fatigue, I think the worst was when we were trying to rationalise our books before moving from a house we had lived in for twenty years. I had to take “decision breaks” regularly or I end up staring at a book unable to decide either way, but even doing that only went so far. I ended up realising I only had so many decisions a day in me, so when I hit the limit I’d go and paint a wall or something else equally mindless. So I wish you lots of decisions a day without exhaustion creeping up on you until it’s time for a break anyway.
I looked thru the comments, but didn’t see this asked. To make a nut free version, would you just add more cookie/ cake crumbs in that amount? Often things are fine just omitting them, but this seems like it might not work if you don’t increase crumbs or replace them with something else. Thanks for sharing! 🤗
awesome! Will pass on to my daughter!
Really tempted to insert Stephen Colbert joke here.
I love it when you share recipes!
Well I just discovered my next new bake to try! And no actual baking required. Well, unless I opt to bake cake/cookies to make it with 🤣
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the recipe!! 🙂
Best wishes, with regards to your mental fatigue. Sunshine and a gentle wind in your hair may help. 😉
I tell my husband that I feel like I’m fighting a war on multiple fronts, because ADHD causes me to require detailed planning of any and all actions, execution is best done in a specific order and with the “approved methodology” and any interruptions/distractions (4 kids and a cat … and a husband) have to be firmly controlled, in order to stay on track.
And, of COURSE I take on more than I can realistically accomplish. Because, I enjoy feeling like I can’t get anything done, apparently. 😀
If this sounds familiar, then you’re in good company. 🙂
Take care.
I got an email from Arcane Society about Blood Heir and Hugh, they’ve printed a shipping label for them in California!! I can’t wait!!
in German bakeries they make Rumkugeln (rum balls) with my leftovers, they roll them in chocolate sprinkles
Ilona… your awesomeness knows no bounds… Thanx! Be healed & well!
Oooh, nice. I need to try this. A bulgarian friend of mine shared a recipe with me that is similar. Also starts with Graham Cracker crumbs, uses melted butter and milk as the ‘glue’, and then you form it into balls and roll it in your choice of covering. She uses coconut, but I’ve also done it with cocoa powder, peanut crumbs, or for the ultimate exercise in sweetness, powdered sugar.
Very easy to make and tweak to suit different tastes.
It’s a little similar to the NZ phenomenon of Lolly cake (except with candy and coconut instead of cocoa)
https://www.countdown.co.nz/recipes/dessert/2390/lolly-cake
We also have a “potato” dessert, except ours is ice cream rolled in chocolate powder and topped with whipped cream. (I’m from Idaho)
Not bad. And a good way to use up the cookies I had. Except that I need to control my sugar so I used crema and just a tablespoon of powdered sugar. Also, since I’m lazy, I spread it in a pan and scoop out whatever portion I want.
I’ll be making it again.
I hope life starts to get a bit easier soon. Thanks for keeping up with us, love your posts!
I cannot understand how April is ending tomorrow. Who took away the beginning of the year? So I can relate to days being mixed up for sure.
Hugs and all the best.