I have been a sweet tooth from the day I was born and the first dessert I ever made was a batch of pancakes.
My mother used to bake pancakes every weekend, and I grew to love them so much that I eventually made my own batch when I was in first grade for my “boyfriend.” He would come to the house and I’d throw them down to him from the third floor window of our tiny flat, and he’d critique them for me. “More butter,” or, “less salt,” or, “not enough sugar!” were just some of the things I remember him telling me.
Not long after that episode, I started to bake traditional Russian cakes and desserts. Luckily for me, we had a bunch of “Burda” magazines lying around the house at the time – a popular fashion magazine that usually had a few pages of recipes at the back of them.
Every week, it became a ritual to tear them out and try to create those recipes myself. Sometimes, there’d be unique and unusual ingredients that our local supermarket didn’t stock, so to get as close to the original recipe as possible,I’d improvise by adding other ingredients I could get my hands on.
Sometimes, the recipes worked out and were wonderful – my Mom approved a couple times. Other times, it would be a complete disaster and everything would go into the bin – this, my Mom was not very happy about. Oops.
As much as I loved baking, I put it aside when I went to university and studied Nursing. It would be another thirty years before my love for baking was revived after moving to a new country and starting a new life. I enrolled in culinary school and became a qualified pastry chef, and it was there that the journey really started.
But, I wanted a real challenge, something that would let me get my hands deep in pastry and chocolate. I wanted to learn how to make sugar flowers, to make chocolate centrepieces, to sculpt figurines… the possibilities and my curiosity were endless.
I continued my culinary education by enrolling in various courses offered by Saviour Patisserie School. I learned advanced baking techniques with Kristen Tibbals in Melbourne, a chocolate modelling with Jerome Landrieu, a dessert course by Serge Alexandre and plenty more. Since then, I have continuously gone back to do more short courses in Melbourne in order to advance my culinary skills.
The goal of Sweet Surrender is to create high quality cakes that look wonderful and taste fantastic.Our aim is to work closely with you to deliver something extra to your event that will bring your guests together around an original and completely personalised dessert or cake. With Sweet Surrender, your dream comes true.
