First of all, I would like to say, that I’ve found some similar recipes in the Internet and now it is not so easy to tell whether it is really a Ukrainian one. However will do so. I believe, we are lucky to live in a high-tech world and share everything we want in the network. And this is the reason why everything sooner or later becomes International.
Actually, such bakery is very typical for Eastern Poland and Western Ukraine. In our country we call cheesecake “syrnyk” and we have a lot of traditional baking recipes with cottage cheese. This cheesecake is one of my favorites, it is tasty, delicate and soft, it melts in mouth and when I see it I can’t stop eating it.
I like simple recipes. And, believe it or not, it took me very little time to prepare this cheesecake. I’m giving you the recipe I usually use. However, feel free to ask questions because I’m not so good in international quantity and temperature measures, and English ;).
The ingredients’ amount is designated for a large form of 25×36 cm (or two middle round forms about 24 cm in diameter).
Ingredients
Dough
2 cups (320 g) flour
125 g sugar
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
2 tsp baking powder
125 g butter or margarine (unsalted)
Cheese Filling
1 kg light cottage cheese
250 g (1 cup) sugar
1/2 cup oil
500 g (2 cups) milk
1 pack pudding without sugar (35-40 g)
2 eggs
4 yolks
Meringue
6 egg whites
250 g sugar
Preparation
First, preheat the oven to 180°C ( 356°F). And now we need to make our cheesecake base.
Dough
Combine all the mentioned ingredients to make dough – we can use food processor for this. So, knead the dough and put it in a plastic bag into a fridge for 30 minutes.
Cheese Filling
Cheese for this cake should be light. Truly, I took a creamy one and reduced the sugar quantity by half. If this is cottage cheese, it should be blended. Next, add the rest of the ingredients and beat all with a mixer until smooth. The mass would be rather fluid.
Take the dough out of the fridge, put it into baking form (use baking paper) and make a thin layer with borders. Use your hands wet in water for this purpose or any other method you know ))).
Pour cheese filling onto the dough and bake for about 1 hour.
Meringue
Whisk whites with a pinch of salt. When they are whisked (until soft peaks) start adding sugar gradually. Start whisking when the cheese cake is already in the oven, directly before putting the foam onto the cheese cake.
Put the meringue on the hot cheesecake and bake it for 10-15 min all together.
After baking open the oven and let the cake cool inside for about 30 minutes. Then take it out and let it cool.
Bon appetite, and as we say in Ukraine “smachnogo”.