At the end of 2020 I looked at the statistics for my blog.
I found that over the five and a half years – sernik – baked cheesecake is my most looked at post and has been for a few years.
As today is The Epiphany – The Three Kings – I thought another version of a Polish Classic would be good.
Recently I got this recipe from my cousin in Wembley.
This is a simple version – not very different from my mama’s but does not have any added butter or soured cream.
The original recipe was on a packet of bought twaróg.
The original recipe used 1 kilogram of twaróg and as you can imagine it was large!
I have cut down the amount of ingredients to make a more manageable sernik.
I have adjusted some of the other ingredients as my own yoghourt cheese is always a little “wetter” than the bought twaróg.
There is no cake base at all in this recipe – but of course you can add one.
Be aware that the cake rises and then collapses on cooling.
Royal Grafton – Woodside – 1940-1959
Ingredients
500g twaróg – yoghurt cheese or cream cheese
4 eggs separated
140g icing sugar & 2 tablespoons & extra for dusting
1 tablespoon of semolina
2 tablespoons of potato flour (cornflour should be okay)
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence or rum
Method
Pre-heat the oven to GM3 – 160°C
Use a cake liner to line a loose bottomed 20cm or 22cm cake tin.
Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until the mixture is pale and creamy.
Add the twaróg or yoghurt cheese and the vanilla essence or rum and whisk all together.
Fold in the semolina and the potato flour.
In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites till they are stiff.
Add the 2 tablespoons of icing sugar and whisk again till stiff.
Fold the egg whites into the cheese mixture.
Spoon the mixture into the lined cake tin.
Bake in the oven for 60 – 70 minutes.
Check earlier and cover if it is starting to catch.
When the cake is ready switch off the oven and leave it in there for at least 40 minutes.
Take out the cake to cool in the tin.
Once it is cold – take the cake out of the tin by loosening the outer ring or placing the cake tin with the loose bottom on a tin can and sliding the cake tin down.
*
Dust the cake with icing sugar before serving.
*
I think this cake is best made the day before you want to serve it – so it is well cooled and set.
Options
You can use this basic mix with a number of variations:
Chocolate drizzle on top.
Mixed peel added to the mixture.
Different cake bases.
Fruit in thickened syrups served with it.
and so on ….
Served on a Vintage glass cake stand and Paragon – hand painted tea plates with a sauce made from thinned down raspberry jam.
I have made it several times since as a larger version when I have had lots of my own yoghurt cheese. For this version I used Morello cherries from a jar.
You can use twaróg, curd cheese, cream cheese or yoghurt cheese, it is a bit different from my usual Polish baked cheesecake. as it does not have a cake/biscuit type base. Because of this you do need a one piece cake liner for your loose bottomed tin.
Ingredients
200g Butter
200g Caster sugar
4 eggs separated
3 tablespoons of potato flour or cornflour
150g Ground almonds
400 – 450g Twaróg , Curd cheese or Yoghurt Cheese
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence
Pinch of salt
Morello cherries from a 460g net weight jar
Optional Topping
Juice from the cherries
1 tablespoon of potato or cornflour to thicken the juice.
Method
Line a 22cm diameter loose bottomed cake tin with a bought paper cake liner.
Preheat the oven to GM5 190°C
Drain the cherries from the juice – keep the juice for the topping.
Cream the butter and sugar until they are soft and fluffy.
Add the egg yolks one by one until you have a smooth mixture.
Add the vanilla essence and the salt and mix in.
Add the cornflour, ground almonds and the yoghurt cheese and mix together thoroughly.
Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff.
Fold the egg whites into the cake mixture.
Put the cake mixture into the lined tin.
Place around half the cherries on top of the mixture.
Bake in the oven for 35 minutes.
Turn the oven down to GM2 – 150°C and bake for around another 30 minutes.
Switch off the oven but leave the cake in there until it is cool.
Keep the cake in the refrigerator but bring to room temperature for serving.
Dust with icing sugar
***
Make a runny sauce from the juice heated with a tablespoon of potato flour.
Serve portions with a few cherries on the side and some of the sauce poured on or next to it.
Served here on tea plates from a coffee service by Midwinter – Queensbury from the 1970s.
My mother often used this base when she made her sernik (baked cheesecake) – it is a recipe she used in later years as the use of peanut butter is not at all traditionally Polish!
Ingredients
110g butter or block margarine
90g caster sugar
175g plain flour
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of peanut butter (I prefer to use crunchy)
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Method
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the lemon rind, egg yolk and peanut butter and cream again.
Mix in the flour with a wooden spoon and then using your hand bring this all together to form a soft dough.
Place the dough in a fridge for several hours.
Pre-heat the over to GM5 – 190°C
Use a loose bottom tin (or spring-form tin) 22cm or 20 cm in diameter.
Grease the base and sides of the tin.
Press the dough onto the base of the tin.
Prick the surface of the dough with a fork.
Bake for around 15 – 20 minutes until the top is golden.
Let the base cool completely before using it.
Using The Base
The base must be thoroughly cooled before use.
The base can be stored on the tin base for later use if needed – wrapped in foil or in an airtight container.
Sernik
Make your sernik (cheesecake) mixture and pour this onto the base and bake as per your recipe.
I used around 450 – 500g of yoghurt cheese with the addition of mixed peel as in my another cheesecake recipe.
Great cake lifter from Lakeland Plastics.
Cake is on a Lead Crystal cake stand
Cake forks are Crazy Daisy by Portmeirion designed by Sophie Conran in 2009.
Tea plates are Enchantment by Colclough from the mid 1950s – 1960s.
I had not planned to write about cheesecakes again so soon but recently I had made lots of yoghurt cheese and I decided to make a baked cheesecake for my visitors.
There are so many variations you can make of baked cheesecakes – here is one with a chocolate and an orangey twist.
I had a packet of milk chocolate digestive biscuits already opened and I thought I would try a variation on my usual recipe.
Ingredients for the base
100- 150g of chocolate digestive digestive biscuits (milk or dark)
50 – 75g of butter
A few chunks of dark chocolate
Method
Grease a spring-form or loose bottomed tin with melted butter. (You can use a 19cm, 20cm or 22cm tin – adjust the amounts of the base ingredients to suit.)
Crush the biscuits in a bowl.
Melt the butter in a pan over a low heat then add the chocolate and let it melt.
Add the butter & chocolate mix to the biscuits and mix them all together.
Press the mixture into the base of the tin and leave it to cool completely.
Once cool you can put it the tin into the fridge whilst you make the yoghurt cheese mixture.
Ingredients for yoghurt cheese mixture
Around 450g of yoghurt cheese (or use cream cheese)
3 eggs separated
80g of caster sugar
60g of chopped mixed peel (I use the peel from Marks & Spencer)
2 tablespoons of custard powder
The custard powder helps as the yoghurt cheese is often quite “wet” – this is a tip I got from the book Eat Well The Yochee Way by Nikki & David Goldbeck.
Method
Pre-heat the oven to GM 3 – 160ºC.
Whisk the egg yolks and the sugar till they are pale and fluffy.
Lightly whisk in the yoghurt cheese and the custard powder till it is all well combined.
Mix in the mixed peel.
Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff and then fold them into the mixture with a metal spoon.
Pour the mixture onto on the biscuit base.
Bake in the oven for 50 minutes.
When the cake is ready switch off the oven and leave it in there for at least 40 minutes.
Take out the cake to cool.
Once it is cold – take the cake out of the tin by loosening the outer ring or placing the cake tin with the loose bottom on a tin can and sliding the cake tin down.
Dust the cake with icing sugar before serving.
I think this cake is best made the day before you want to serve it – so it is well cooled and set.
The blue & white table cloth is a new 100% cotton one from Ikea.
The tea plate is Las Palmas by Aynsley from the 1960s.
Baked cheesecakes have a very long history with the Ancient Greeks baking them with cheese and then the Romans adding eggs to the recipes.
Varieties of cheesecakes were made in the Middle East and mentioned in the Old Testament. Maybe a land flowing with milk and honey is so good as these are ingredients needed to make a cheesecake!
The traditional cheesecake in Poland is a baked cheesecake and it is found in Christian and Jewish Traditions.
One story is that King Jan III Sobieski brought the recipe back with him after his victory against the Turks at the Battle of Vienna (1683).
This could tie up with the fact that one version of the cheesecake in Poland is called Viennese – Style.
When immigrants to the United States of America from Poland, Russia and Germany took their recipes with them in the 19 Century we eventually got the New York Cheesecake.
As ser is the Polish word for cheese – we get sernik as the Polish word for cheesecake.
Cheesecakes are made from twaróg – curd cheese, eggs and sugar and how they turn out depends not only on the proportions of each but also the cheese that is used. Butter and soured cream may also be used.
My mother used to make her own curd cheese from fresh farm milk that was allowed to sour and then the solid curds were separated from the whey by pouring the soured milk into a muslin cloth and leaving this to drain.
Unfortunately you cannot make soured milk from pasteurised milk.
Recently I have been making my own yoghurt and yoghurt cheese. You have to use a live yoghurt starter with pasteurised milk. This is very similar to twaróg, not identical but very near. The result tastes wonderful but it takes a lot of time and effort to get enough cheese at home and so the following recipes use bought cheese.
You can find twaróg now in Polish shops and some supermarkets and sometimes under its German name qwark.
Twaróg – Curd Cheese
Previously as the curd cheese was not available my recipes have been adapted to use a Philadelphia ™ style cream cheese.
Philadelphia ™ is a cream cheese invented in 1872 in New York State.
Full fat makes the best cheesecake. You can use a mixture of full fat and medium fat but never use low fat cheese.
You cannot make a good baked cheesecake from low fat cheese.
Curd cheese is slightlygrainyand to get the best results you either need to put it through a mincer or use a blender.
A traditional baked cheesecake has 2 layers – a cake base and then the curd cheese layer on top.
In my mother’s original cake the cheese mixture was poured over a baked cake base but for ease I often use a crushed biscuit base.
Mama’s Cheesecake
Biscuit Base Ingredients
75g melted butter
150g digestive, rich tea or morning coffee biscuits
You need a round tin with a loose base or a spring form tin or you will not be able to get the cake out. I always use an anodised aluminium tin, 23cm in diameter and 7 cm deep, which does not rust.
Selection of my anodised cake tins
Grease the tin well with butter.
Crush the biscuits to make fine crumbs and use some of these to coat the sides of the greased tin.
Crushed biscuits
Add the melted butter to the rest of the biscuits and mix together. Put this mixture onto the base of the tin pressing it down firmly.
Biscuit crumb mix – pressed into the tin
Leave the tin in a cold place whilst you make the cheese mixture.
Cheese Mixture Ingredients
700g of curd cheese or cream cheese (at room temperature)
6 egg yolks
2 egg whites
4 tablespoons of caster sugar
50 to 75g of melted butter
3 drops of vanilla essence
1 to 2 tablespoons of semolina (optional)
Pre heat the oven to GM4 – 180oC.
In a large bowl beat the yolks and sugar until they are thick and creamy – the mixture should be lighter in colour than the original yolks and be creamy. (This may take around 5 minutes). Then add the cooled melted butter, cheese and vanilla essence.
If using the semolina, add this now – it makes the cake a bit denser. (I rarely add this with cream cheese, more often with curd cheese).
Beat the whites with a whisk until you have soft peaks and fold these into the mixture.
Pour the mixture on top of the biscuit base and bake for 1 to 1 ¼ hours. Check after an hour, if the top starts to get too brown before the cake is cooked place a piece of foil over the top.
Once the cake is cooked switch off the oven, you can leave the door open slightly and let it cool down in the oven, this prevents it sagging and cracking too much as it cools. (It will sag and often does crack – this is not unusual).
Once the cake is cool you can take it out of the tin. I use a tin can and put the cake tin on this and slide the side of the cake tin down.
Dust the top of the cake with icing sugar before serving.
This cake tastes best if allowed to get cold, so make it the day before it is needed.
Variations
You can make endless variations on this basic recipe by adding raisins, mixed peel, fresh raspberries and so on or adding a drizzle of melted dark chocolate on the top when it has cooled.
In Poland one type of cheesecake is described as Vienneseand another as fromKraków. The Viennese one has sultanas or raisins and orange peel in the cheese mixture and sometimes some chocolate on top, whilst the one from Kraków is traditionally baked in a square or rectangular shape and has a lattice of pastry over the top and will also have sultanas or raisins in the cheese mixture.
Cheesecake Version 2
I cannot quite remember the origin of this version, I think my mother got it either from one of her friends or from the Polish newspaper. It has soured cream as one of the ingredients but no butter. It uses all the egg whites which are stiffly beaten causing this cake to have a lighter texture and it rises more but does sink down again as it cools.
The instructions are the same as the one above for the biscuit base. It is the cheese mixture which is different
Cheese Mixture Ingredients
600g curd cheese or cream cheese (at room temperature)
100g caster sugar
6 eggs separated
120 mls soured cream
grated rind of 2 lemons or 3 drops of vanilla essence
Pre heat the oven to GM4 – 180oC.
In a large bowl beat the yolks and sugar until they are thick and creamy, add the lemon rind (or vanilla essence), soured cream and cheese.
In another large bowl whisk the whites till they are stiff and fold these into the cheese mixture using a metal spoon.
Pour the mixture on top of the biscuit base and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Check after 50 minutes if the top starts to get too brown before the cake is cooked place a piece of foil over the top.
Once the cake is cooked switch of the oven, you can leave the door open slightly and let it cool down in the oven, this prevents it sagging and cracking too much as it cools.
Once the cake is cool you can take it out of the tin. I use a tin can and put the cake tin on this and slide the side of the cake tin down.
Dust the top of the cake with icing sugar before serving.
This cake tastes best if allowed to get cold, so make it the day before it is needed.
There seems to be is no end to the variety of cakes in Poland: yeast cakes, tort(layer cake), poppy seed cakes, apple cakes, cheesecakes, cakes with berries, honey cakes, cakes with nuts and many more. I could write a book just on cakes alone, even on just one type of cake.
The influence of France, Austria and Hungary can be seen or rather tasted in some of the cakes and pastries. This has come about through royal alliances in the past with foreign princesses bringing their chefs to Poland.
There are special cakes for different days of the year especially Easter and Christmas Eve.
A Few Notes on Ingredients
I have adapted some recipes, as did my mother, to take into consideration the availability of ingredients here in England.
Cream in Poland is smetana – soured cream, and before its general availability in England we would use single or double cream with lemon juice added to it.
As in many countries in Europe, there is not any self-raising flour in Poland. There are different flours for bread making and there is a special plain flour for cake making to which you have to add baking powder. Many recipes use potato flour and sometimes cornflour.
Sugar in Poland is from sugar beet and is white sugar so there is not a tradition of cakes with brown sugar or syrup or treacle. Strangely enough the sugar is granulated or icing there is not any caster sugar.
Butter in Poland is unsalted and this although is better for baking and certainly for making butter cream, I do not find it makes enough of a difference to go out and get this type specially, salted will do if that is what you have.
Tort is usually layered up with rich butter cream or similar.
