Quark Kuchen
Quark? My boss asks as he looks at the menu I offer him for a dinner party.He assumes it’s a computer program or some foreign substance he can’t pronounce so I educate him to the fact that there is a German cheese that makes a sublime tasting cheesecake instead of the usual cream cheese ! Rather than doing a bread and butter pudding, which although is rather delicious too I have a hankering for my sisters recipe I tasted a couple times. She incorporates seasonal fruits like rhubarb, currants or even raspberries. This version is from Dr. Oeteker’s book, though it reminds me a lot of the version my sister makes I didn’t reproduce hers, as she had some processed pudding or custard in it, where will I find that in my pantry? Instead I use the basic stock of pantry items in most classic cheese cakes, eggs, sugar, cheese, starch or flour etc… Though I love a New York style cheese cake, I have a real affinity for that German style that are lightened with egg whites, less rich but still satisfying none the less!
Dough:
150 g A.P. flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
75 gSugar
2-3 teaspoons Vanilla sugar
pinch of salt
1 Egg
75 g Butter
Filling:
750 g Quark
150 g Sugar
3 tsp lemon juice
50 g Corn starch
4 eggs seperated
200ml Heavy cream
Mix flour with baking powder,add
sugar, vanilla sugar, a dash of salt, egg
and soft butter. Mix these ingredients and knead until you get a
soft dough. If it is too sticky, put it in the fridge until firm.
Take 2/3 of the dough and roll it out on the bottom of a 10 inch spring form pan
(diameter 28 cm). Knead 1 tablespoon of flour into the remaining dough
and form a rim. Pierce several times with a fork.
Put this into the preheated oven at 200-220°C – 400 F for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix Quark
with sugar, lemon juice and starch. Beat the
whites of four eggs, mix the four yolks, beat 200 ml cream into the Quark, folding the egg whites at the end.
Spread the Quark evenly on the pre-baked dough and put into the oven for 70 to 80 minutes at 170°C. 325 F
After the cake is done, it should be left in the oven for about 20 minutes with the door ajar and the heat turned off. Cool on rack.
I’ve been playing with fromage blanc, quarks relative. I love the flavor of these ‘cheeses’ and keep forgetting how they make wonderfully simple desserts.
David,
When I was little my Mom used to make crepes with fromage blanc and raisins soaked in something if I can recollect, we were living in Alsace, I assume it was kirsch, that is a memory of flavor I can’t forget!
Jeremy