Gina Dejoras remembers her first encounter with Russian cookies as though it was only yesterday. “I was a little girl when my aunt brought home a canister of Russian cookies. I remember the taste distinctly because it was really delicious and I couldn’t stop eating it,” she says.

The memory of those Russian cookies stayed with Gina until adulthood, when she found herself searching for the dessert but realized how difficult it was to find them, especially the variant she liked best.

No Russian cookie she tasted came close to the one she loved as a child, so Gina decided to make her own, trying out recipes she’d researched. It was only after altering the recipe many times that she finally came up with the Russian cookie of her childhood. Friends who received her cookies as Christmas gifts loved it, that they wanted to order.

“It was only many years later when I needed some extra income, that I remembered there were people who wanted to buy my Russian cookies, so I started to make them and sell them during Christmas,” Gina says.

And that’s how the Russian Cookie House came about.

House of sweet creations
Gina’s version (P250 for a regular box of 20 pieces) is the classic snowball butter cookie that comes with a whole walnut. Bite into a morsel, and it breaks into powdery bits, leaving a rich buttery taste that will only be satiated by another piece.

While Gina calls her creations Russian cookies, she’s the first to admit that she’s not sure about the recipe’s authenticity. Other versions of the Russian cookie use chopped nuts or cashews or pecans, while Gina prefers to use the walnut.

“If you try other Russian cookies, they don’t taste like mine. In fact, I’m not even sure if the cookie I tasted as a kid was the real thing.” Russian friends who have tried it liked the taste but admitted that Gina’s version is indeed different. What matters to Gina is that she likes the taste of her cookies–and her customers do too.

Which is why Gina has expanded the Russian Cookie House to include pistachio cookies (P250 for 15 pieces), the Scandinavian cinnamon-flavored Jan Hagel (P250 for a combination of 8 Russian cookies, 8 Jan Hagel, and 6 pieces pistachio), the Austrian linzer cookies (P250 for 13 pieces), the linzer schnitte (P280 for 10 pieces), and four kinds of biscotti in flavors of cranberry pistachio, cappuccino raisin, cappuccino hazelnut, and cranberry almond chocolate (P250 for 15 pieces in a cellophane pack).

“I basically start with what I want to eat, and most of my recipes are altered to suit my taste,” she admits.

While the Russian Cookie House currently operates out of her home kitchen and is present only in food fairs, among them the Dessert Haven at Trinoma and the Rockwell and American Women’s bazaars, Gina dreams of one day having her own shop–depending on the demand, of course. One bite into her Russian cookie and we know that’s not too far off.

Catch Gina at the Dessert Haven in Trinoma Thursdays to Sundays of March.

Russian Cookie House
Gina (+63) 917 895 2863 and (+63 2) 897 1115
Teena (+63 2) 896 5707

Photo by Kmaquiling