We dined on ham in hay, drank fermented rye liquid, jumped over fires built of candles and searched for a non-existent flowering plant…

Our secret Baltic Midsummer Brunchclub has gone well.

A flower girl with Estonian goodies.

The idea (on which you can read more here) was to celebrate this ancient, pagan festival of summer solstice – known as Jaanipaev in Estonia or Ivan Kupala in Russia. And so I wanted to cook up dishes either associated with this time of the year (end of the farming cycle, collection of hay) or with the Baltic region, then get traditionally tipsy and dance khorovods. well, almost.

I had planned a couple of naughty rituals for people to follow – well, not that naughty, although some guests were quite up for all sorts! But the great British weather has interfered, of course, and so we settled on more salubrious jumping over fire and looking for (a phantom) flowering fern.

Occasional showers just added a tone of frivolity to the Baltic feast, they said.

For the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting recipes of the dishes I made for this Baltic-Nordic-Russian brunch/dinner, but here’s the menu that 13 (yes, 13) lucky guests were sampling:

My Baltic Midsummer Brunch

Vodka and elderflower cocktail
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Home-pickled herring

Sweet and sour home-cured herring with allspice (the picture shows the fish still in curing process)

Poached eggs lashed with dill hollandaise
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My own Borodinsky bread

My own Borodinsky (rye sourdough) bread. Bakin in the sun.

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Ham baked in hay

Ham in hay (cooked in kvass and beer).

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Cucumber and dill salad

Cucumber, dill and sourcream salad. with spring onions meshed to oblivion.

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Sea buckthorn cheesecake

Seabuckthorn (oblepikha) cheesecake. The biggest surprise of all.

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Ryebread icecream
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Kama truffles with Old Tallinn tipple…

Kama (Estonian flour of roasted grains) and mascapone truffles.

Which recipe should I start with, my dear reader?