The New Year is не за горами (not far away). Have you put together your holiday menu? If not yet, then how about having сладкий (sweet) стол (table)? Don’t worry, you won’t need to perform miracles of confectionery mastery crafting a table out of sugar or covering your tabletop with ganache. What сладкий стол means is a holiday meal that consists only of сладкое (sweets) and десерты (desserts) and most of them can be bought at a Russian store near you!

Do you love sweets? Then let’s learn a great Russian word for someone who is падкий на сладости (a sucker for sweets):

сладкоежка

As you can see, this is a compound noun made up of сладкий (sweet) and ешь (a form of the Russian verb “to eat”).

Russian dessert table is somewhat similar to a regular застолье (a feast). It will have lots and lots of little appetizers, a main course and even its own dessert. Except it will all be served at the same time. How awesome is that?! Here are some of the sweets you might be offered.

Шоколад (chocolate) – As with any other candy, Russians have a bewildering variety of chocolates and somewhat of an unwritten rule about which kind to serve when. For example, small шоколадные конфеты (chocolate candies) individually wrapped in colorful фантики (candy wrappers) are usually reserved for children or small gatherings with close friends. But chocolates filled with liquor are exempt from this rule.

If there are chocolates on the “sweet table”, they are most likely to be a part of шоколадный набор (box of chocolates). The boxes the chocolates come in are gorgeous and the chocolates are not bad either, especially the so-called птичье молоко (souffle in dark chocolate; lit: bird’s milk).

Пряники – usually translated as gingerbread or spice cakes, these are delicious, whether made with мёд (honey) or патока (molasses). I never tasted any имбирь (ginger) or специи (spices) in any of the commercially made ones though.

Сухарики – these look like biscotti, but are much much better. They usually are vanilla flavored and might have some изюм (raisins) in them. Dunk them in your tea, if you wish. Or put some варенье (preserves) on them and start making loud crunching sounds. For these reasons, not to mention lots of crumbs, сухарики are not served at more formal occasions. Pitty.

Печенье – this can mean anything from scones to crackers to cookies. Печенье is usually unglazed, crumbly, soft and delicious. It is a a subset of выпечка (baked goods) which include anything that is sweet and baked.

Пирожное (pastry) – these can mean just about any kind of sweet pastry. Some of my favorite пирожные include Картошка (potato-shaped sweets made with crushed печенье mixed with cocoa powder, butter and condensed milk), трубочки (little horns of puff pastry with meringue filling), and Орешки (dough nuggets filled with condensed milk). Do not confuse пирожные with пирожки which might or might not be sweet.

Other sweets you might encounter include

Цукаты – candied citrus or watermelon peels, usually home-made.
Халва (halva) – usually, a flour-based sweet and crumbly confection.
Зефир – a jellied meringue, sometimes dipped in chocolate. When fresh, it tastes better than it sounds.
Козинаки – small dense candies made entirely of pressed walnuts or sunflower seeds with honey. They spell death to your dental work, but what a delicious death it is!

All these goodies are usually served on attractive plates and in вазочки. Вазочка is, of course, a diminutive of ваза (a vase). Which might sound confusing. How (and why) do you serve cookies in a vase? But in Russia, вазочка is a small deep but wide serving dish, frequently made of etched glass. Hence the oft-used phrase

Передайте, пожалуйста, вазочку с вареньем – Please, pass me the the little vase with the preserves.

Don’t forget, these are just appetizers! Time to move on to the main course. At the “sweet table” it will be торт (layered cake) or пирог (fruit pie). Or both. Пирог is more casual and comforting. So for the New Year’s торт is usually served. Russians in the US like serving чизкейк also known by its less sexy name as творожный пудинг (cheesecake).

But don’t buy into this fad. You can have cheesecake any other time. For a truly Russian сладкий стол serve something traditional – Королевский торт (Royal cake), Киевский торт (Kiev cake), медовик (honey cake) or the amazing Наполеон (Napoleon cake). It will all be delicious many-layered goodness with (usually) heavy butter and condensed milk frosting and lots of nuts.

Afterwards, you might want to nibble on the dessert part of this dessert table – фрукты (fruits). But just nibble or the hostess, thinking that you might still be hungry, will offer you yet another piece of cake.

Ещё кусочек тортика? – Would you like another slice of cake?

Desserts mean чаепитие (a tea party), so expect lots of чай (tea) phrases like

Вы будете чай или кофе? – Will you be drinking tea or coffee?
Какой чай вы предпочитаете? – What kind of tea do you prefer?
Ещё чашечку? – More tea (or coffee)?
Вам чай с мёдом или сахаром? – Will you drink your tea with honey or sugar?

Unless it’s a children’s party, you will also be offered что-то покрепче (something a bit stronger) than tea, сок (juice) or лимонад (fizzy lemonade). Vodka is viewed as a universal pairing by some eager hosts. But generally, for a “sweet table”, you’ll have a choice of шампанское (sparking wine), вино (wine) and коньяк (cognac). Oh, plus whatever liquor is in the chocolate candies.

And now you know what to expect in case you are invited to a New Year’s celebration and your Russian host tells you (somewhat apologetically) that it won’t be a big affair, just a сладкий стол. Съем, пожалуй, ещё кусочек тортика, но с завтрашнего дня – в спорзал и на диету. (I’ll have another slice of cake after all, but starting tomorrow I’ll go to a gym and start dieting).