Sernik (Polish Cheesecake)

Ingredients

Cake

300 g wheat flour
1 egg
150 g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
200 g soft butter
salt

Filling

100 g butter
4 eggs
1 kg white fresh cheese
200 g sugar
2 tsp vanila sugar
½ dl rice flour or manna
1 dl raisins (optional)

Procedure

Mix the flour with sugar, a little salt and baking powder. Knead with the soft butter and the egg. The dough rests approx. 30 min. in the fridge. The dough is divided into 3 parts. One part is rolled out in a circle Ø 26 cm. This is placed at the bottom of a large lubricated (or baking-lined) spring mold. The other part is rolled out to a band approx. 80 cm long and 4-5 cm wide. This is set to the side of the spring shape.

For the filling, soften the butter, mix with cheese (use mixer at low speed), sugar, egg yokes, vanilla sugar and rice flour. Whip the egg whites to foam and mix it gently with the curd by hand. The raisins are rolled in flour and put into the filling last. Pour the filling in the spring mold. The last part of the dough is rolled out and cut into narrow strips (riveted with pizza slicer), which are placed crosswise across the curd.

Bake approx. 1 hour at 175 ºC. Remove from the oven, rests approx. 10 min. before the mold is opened.

Make your own cheese

If you cannot get hold of white cheese, it's easy to make yourself:

Put 4 litres of fresh milk into a jar or pot, add 1 dl sour milk, stir well. Put a lid (or a towel) over the pot, wait till the next day. Now the milk should have stiffened. If you can get sour milk (unflavoured), you can use 4 litres of this instead. You then put the stiffened sour milk on the stove, warm it slowly till the milk separates into the yellow fluid and the white cheese. With a spoon with holes, put the white cheese into a sieve for a while. After cooling in the fridge (until next day), the cheese is ready for use.