Baba's Chornystsya Smetanovyy Pliatsok

Hey Poopchik!

Here are extra recipe to my book. This quick, easy Berry Pliatsok will be unique dish for your party this weekend. You can use almost any fruit. It have that distinct Ukrainian taste. You can make with fresh or frozen fruit! There is now plenty of very nice frozen fruit in stupormarket, if you did not freeze your own.

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Blueberry Tart with Sour Cream

Pop Tart was idea stolen from Ukrainian by corporation. You can either make Platsok, with love, or buy some blueberry Pop Tart, with love. Pliatsok is like fruit pie, custard pie and love letter all at once! No top crust, just beautiful coat of smetana, sour cream.

Platsok will make you winner for three good reason:

Leave butter out at least couple hours to soften its heart. At this stage, Baba give you permission to use microwave for few seconds, if necessary.

Get 9" pie pan with high side ready with butter massage. OR use springform pan, which will make Pliatsok much easier to remove.

Then sprinkle in flour and shake around till bottom and side is coat. Remember when you had to powder yourself to put on jeans? Thorough, like that. Then shake pan little bit more upside down, over garbage, so is no extra flour.

Crust

Mix all dry stuff together: pastry flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Use medium size bowl. I use icing sugar, as it mix better.

Baba find that sifting first three ingredient make more even crust. If you have dandruff, wear hairnet. Is nearly impossible to sort this out later.

Cut butter into several small piece, drop into dry stuff, and cut cut cut into coarse crumb. If you have self control, you can even cut with finger.

Baba didn't think so.

Add wet stuff: lemon/orange zest, vanilla and egg. Beat like crazy till it turn into obvious dough with no lump.

Spread dough around bottom of pan and about 1 inch up side, After Paska recipe and 5 times rising, aren't you glad this dough not kneaded? It not knead you, either. Ha!

Preheat oven to 350 F. Putting food in cold oven is like when man try to make love to woman with no romance. She will not get cooked through.

Filling

Spread on top of crust, any of following combination:

Baba Alert: have extra fruit on hand to cover any bare spot, which is almost inevitable. You can't do combover on tart, like on hair. Tart is naked for world to see.

For berries only: Mix 1 tablespoon corn starch into fruit.

Bake 30 minutes.

While this action is going down, make:

Smetana (Sour Cream) Custard:

Baba hope you getting some nice Jersey cow smetana from farmer. If not, white jello from stupormarket will also work.

Mix smetana with egg, sugar, vanilla and corn starch. Some people use flour, but I find corn starch give less lump and more pleasant texture in any recipe.

Make sure to take Pliatsok out of oven first. This is not time for balancing act. Pour custard gentle over fruit. With oven mitt on, rock pan like sleepy bunny, so custard flow evenly through fruit.

Put Platsok back in oven for about 20 minute, until custard stop quivering in middle. Tart bake from outside in.

If you like Pop Tart, sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top. Colored sprinkles is overkill.

Take out from oven and put on wire rack to cool completely. If you try to eat while hot, it will be kind of gross, like Muskoli recipe they steal from Ukrainian. Yes, Baba is rubbing it in.

Also, don't be alarmed when Pliatsok do small breathing exercise. Fruit will very brief swell up on top of crust, then make deflation. This is not like your cake falling flat. Is normal.

Room temperature is good, and refrigerated is even better. If you used springform pan, drop its sides. If not, get help shoveling out Platsok.

Ingredients

Crust

Fruit Topping

As in recipe. If you use canned fruit or oi yoi yoi pie filling, do not dare to ask Baba why it all went blooey!

Custard

Optional

PS Baba love these personal story, but if you not crazy about writing, review need only be one sentence.

"Your book has us all laughing hysterically & uncontrollably! Daikoyu=thank you!"
~Ottawa Ukrainian Festival

"Long live Baba's Kitchen! This is a wonderful presentation of Ukrainian cuisine. Beautiful recipes with stories that make them come alive!"~Professor Franklin Sciacca, Hamilton College, New York

"Filled with humour and written with love, this cookbook is perfect for those of us who want to connect with our Ukrainian ancestry and traditions, even if we are three generations removed from "da olt country". I love that the book is "peppered" with folksy coloquial language, and cultural tidbits.

It has recipes for dishes that I remember my own Baba talking about, but that I never got to try while she was alive. This book sits proudly on my shelf of most-used cookbooks, right beside the much more academic (and nearly impossible to find copies of because it has been out of print for decades) Traditional Ukrainian Cookery by Savella Stechishin. Thank you Raisa (aka Baba) for your entertaining book and video blog!"~PD, Amazon Reader

"I bought this book after randomly discovering Baba's YouTube video about the Ukrainian curse, which made me laugh so hard I nearly wet myself. What a delight to discover the entire book is written in the same voice! I can't vouch for a single recipe, because since I've received the cookbook, I've done nothing but read all the stories aloud to my family and we've all been laughing until our sides hurt and we can't breathe.

Raisa Stone is a genius. I pity those poor reviewers whose boring babas would never tell outrageous or insulting stories---because Raisa has perfectly captured the spirit of my own wonderful baba, who I miss every single day precisely because she was never afraid to speak her mind. I cannot thank the author enough for allowing me to bring my baba to life for my children, even if only briefly and just a bit in caricature. They never knew her, and to be able to share her with them in this way is an amazing gift. When I can get my eyes to dry out enough from the tears of laughter so that I can read again, I promise I will get around to cooking some of the recipes, too."~J. Hodges

"I loved this book so much that I bought 10 for sisters and nieces as Christmas and birthday gifts. The recipes are authentic and presented in easy to read and follow format. It is an absolutely great collection of authentic dishes, and will remind you of your mother and grandmother's cooking. But also will remind you of the great fun of preparing meals with the women in your family- of preparing meals with mom and baba and sisters- always with a great sense of humour and laughing (great super memories). The author has caught that sense of family together preparing meals with warmth and laughter. I would highly recommend this book not only for the great recipes, but also for the stories told with love and care, and best of all, with humour."
~Fialka

"This collection of recipes and lore is priceless. Beautiful and interesting preparation instructions, plus Baba's jokes and Baba's Laws.

So sweet and many recipes I have not seen before. If you're interested in Ukrainian food and traditions, this book is a great buy!"~Rachel

"Really interesting recipes if Ukrainian culture and cooking is important to you; plus, it's very funny! For 'adult' cookbook readers only though due to many racy folkloric tales."~Lettie

"Raisa, I have just gotten your book, Baba's Kitchen:Ukrainian Soul Food, and I cannot tell you how absolutely enjoyable it was to read. I have never seen quite such a unique book such as yours. I will be buying a copy for each of my sisters and friends as birthday and Christmas gifts. Fabulous! Fabulous! Fabulous!"~Natalie Tarasiuk Korsh, Toronto

"Loads of fun and info on life in a Ukrainian Village. I can still hear my Baba saying, "Oi Yoi Yoi!"~Nancy L. Broad, Connecticut

"I laughed my dupa off. So nice to go down memory lane . Read it for the culture as well as the recipes. Can't wait for her next book."~A Uke in NJ

"Cooking the recipes from your book and newsletters has been a blessing to my Mom. We have your books next to the cash register, and I'm still a huge fan of you and your work. We sold a lot over our Ukrainian Festival and want to sell more here and at our Ukrainian center at next year's festival, with the funds going to the Ukrainian humanitarian aid fund that was established here following a symposium speaker we had who was in Kyiv during Maidan."
~Jessie Romanyshyn, Four Corners Cafe & Ukrainian Gift Shop, Belfield, South Dakota

"Cooking borshch and laughing. This book is like a trip back to Ukraine, complete with the nit picking comments on how I do things. Hilarious. Buy. This. Book."~Garthrey D. Sponseler

"I found many recipes that I had been searching for since my time in the Carpathians in 2010. The one I looked for the most was a mushroom soup that to my pleasant surprise was here. I have cooked for friends and family since I received the book and 4 people have loved it so much they have ordered copies of their own. The humor is Ukrainian and part of what made me fall in love with Ukraine since my first visit there."~Roberto Marquez, New Mexico

"Absolutely charming. I had a smile on my face the entire time reading it. She also gives a short history of Ukraine as well the war in present day Ukraine. Her commentary was more interesting than the recipes."~Alex Hoag

"I finally bought Baba book from Four Corners Cafe. Jesse Romanyshyn recommended it. My husband, Bill laughed and said finally maybe I can cook good food, I said maybe Baba has a recipe to make his hair grow back {She does}. He was quiet after that. I am so excited to read this book, thank you so much for this, I look forward to making traditional food with my two daughters!"~Mattie Romanyshyn, Belfield, South Dakota

"None of the TV cooks go to central and Eastern Europe. The food there is overlooked, and that's a huge pity. This food is great, it is healthy and filling and, for these straitened times, it can be economical too. Buy this book for the "Baba" entertainment value - then try the food!

I absolutely intend to cook like Baba, using her recipes. But when I want a laugh, entertainment, or just good reading, I turn to Baba too."~Amazon Customer