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Polish Cheesecake

June 22, 2020 by Lois Britton 13 Comments

Cheesecake is one of the most popular desserts in Poland, and it’s easy to see why. The melt in your mouth goodness is just the thing with a cup of coffee or tea. This Polish Cheesecake recipe comes from Martha W., a reader who lives in the UK. Martha also comes from a military family.

Her father’s time in the US Army gave her a taste of life overseas. Today, she is married to a British man of Polish and Lithuanian descent, and she has kindly shared the sernik recipe that comes from her husband’s Polish family. I should also say the photographs are Martha’s. I’m grateful she has given me permission to share them and the recipe with you.

The most common questions on my own sernik recipe have to do with the cheese. “Where do I find twaróg?’ “What if I can’t find twaróg?” You’ll see that this family when they settled in the UK had the same issue. The familiar farmer’s cheese wasn’t available, so they found a practical solution and adapted the recipe to make it with cream cheese.

It does have the traditional shortcrust pastry, complete with latticework on top.

Polish cheesecake with lattice top

 

This happens all the time when families relocate. You make do with what you find in your new location. I didn’t bring chocolate chips to Poland in my suitcase.

If I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, I chopped up some of the delicious chocolate bars that were readily available at our Polish supermarket. I found equal parts of milk and dark chocolate approximated the taste of semi-sweet chocolate chips very nicely.

Amazon links are part of their associate program and your qualifying purchases generate a commission at no extra cost to you.

I ran Martha’s recipe in a recent newsletter and within a few hours, I had multiple requests from folks who wanted to save the recipe on Pinterest, but weren’t able to do so from my email. So here it is friends; Martha’s cheesecake online and pin-able!

Thanks again, Martha for sharing. We both hope you’ll enjoy it!

Smacznego!

Lois

 

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Polish Cheesecake

★★★★★ 5 from 2 reviews
  • Author: polishhousewife reader recipe
  • Prep Time: 20 minutes + 30 minutes chill
  • Cook Time: 25 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour 15 min
  • Yield: 10-12 servings 1x
  • Category: Dessert
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: Polish
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Description

A Polish recipe adapted for readily available ingredients


Ingredients

Scale

for the crust:

  • 5 oz all-purpose flour
  • 1 oz icing (confectioners) sugar
  • Pinch salt
  • 3 oz butter
  • 2 egg yolks

for the filling:

  • 1/2 pound cream cheese, softened
  • 1 1/2 oz butter, softened
  • 3 oz caster sugar
  • 1 oz plain flour
  • 2 eggs, separated + 1 white (save a white from the pastry)
  • 2 tbsp milk

Instructions

  1. Make the pastry by combining the flour, sugar, salt, butter, egg yolks, and adding a little water if necessary. Chill for at least 30 mins.
  2. Preheat oven to 375F.
  3. Line a 7  x 11 – inch pan with your pastry (reserving scraps to roll out thinly for the top in step 6, as in the photo).
  4. Beat butter and sugar to a soft cream.  Add flour and milk.  Beat yolks and add to mixture and then beat in cream cheese.
  5. In a separate bowl whisk 3 egg whites until stiff and fold them in.
  6. Put filling into pastry-lined pan and put crisscross strips across.  It can be rustic looking.
  7. Bake for 25 mins.  The top will start to brown and filling will rise up a bit but will settle back down on cooling.
  8. Cool completely.  You can refrigerate before serving.  Store in the fridge if you have leftovers!  You can dust the top with icing sugar before serving and it’s great served with strawberries and raspberries.

Keywords: Polish cheesecake

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Lois Britton

An accountant by trade and a food blogger since 2009, Lois Britton fell in love with Polish cuisine during the years she lived in Poznań, Poland. As the creator of PolishHousewife.com,  she loves connecting readers with traditional Polish recipes. Lois has a graduate certificate in Food Writing and Photography from the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Polish Housewife Cookbook, available on Amazon and on her website.

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Filed Under: Dessert, Polish, Polish Desserts

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kathryn Rowland

    June 26, 2020 at 5:12 pm

    Has anyone heard of a cheese cake made with a graham cracker crust, and the filling was made with dry cottage and regular cottage cheese. This was baked in the oven and was very heavy. My Mom and Aunt made this when I was a kid in Toledo, Ohio?? Nothing like this in the Polish cookbooks I have.

    Thanks

    Reply
    • Candy Moran

      July 29, 2020 at 9:49 am

      I make one with a graham cracker crust but the filing is cream cheese and then it is topped with sour cream mixture. In my grandmother recipe book she has it labeled Polish cheese cake. It’s the only one our family has ever made.

      Reply
      • Catherine Caschera

        January 30, 2021 at 10:48 pm

        Yes, my mother made cheesecake this way. Very dense. I remember helping her by putting the cheeses through the hand mill.

        Reply
    • James

      April 1, 2021 at 9:52 am

      well after the fact, but that’s Angel Cheesecake Pie. My Uke grandma made it from dry cottage cheese sourced from Stanley’s (Toledo), and used nuts/cocoanut for the crust. The Boomers in my family call this “real cheesecake”. Cooks dot com has the legit recipe for it …

      Reply
    • Dennee Diane

      March 21, 2022 at 10:32 am

      The Recipe Kathy Rowland is looking for is in
      TREASURED POLISH RECIPES
      FOR AMERICANS .
      IT is a Ref Book Published by
      POLANIE CLUB 1st printing was back in 1977.
      This book has had many printings since.
      A Great cook book to add to your collection.
      The picture on cover is is Surounded by white with a Polish girl. proudly caring a tray of food.
      * Item is Called Cottage Cheese Cake.
      Page 134.
      I hve made it Serveral times. Delious.
      This cheese cake use to be a big Iten at wedding back in the 1950’s and 1960’s
      Big double sheet cake sizes.. Very National
      I hope tjis Helped You..

      YOU CA BUY IT ON Amazon

      Reply
  2. Christine

    July 31, 2020 at 5:16 am

    You can purchase Twarog cheese in Polish shops in the UK.

    Reply
    • Martha

      April 5, 2021 at 2:11 am

      Yes now you can. When I first made this recipe back in the 79s you could not get hold of it so I still use cream cheese to this day.

      Reply
    • Martha

      April 5, 2021 at 2:14 am

      Typo – meant 70s!!

      Reply
  3. Sue

    August 29, 2020 at 7:17 pm

    Thank you for sharing, this is a lovely cheesecake. I will say that I wish people would comment on the recipe rather than talking about it’s not like the recipe they know. In my countries people have their own variations of how their family made something and people make variations according to produce etc that is available to them or to their palette, to their dietary needs and to their allergies. So when someone shares their version of a recipe people don’t need to comment that it’s different to what they know – they either like it or they don’t.
    I for one love seeing variations on recipes that I make as sometimes I adapt those changes,
    THANK YOU for mentioning in your introduction and using the example of not having chocolate chips and using chocolate bars – this is what it’s all about.

    ★★★★★

    Reply
    • polishhousewife

      August 30, 2020 at 10:09 am

      We are on the same page, Sue! Recipes, like language, change with time and location.

      Reply
    • Martha

      April 5, 2021 at 2:17 am

      I agree. I just had an Italian Pastiera Napoletana pie for Easter and the recipes for this vary enormously. Very glad you like this version of Polish cheesecake.

      Reply
  4. Yasya

    June 29, 2021 at 2:58 am

    Delicious!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  5. Tania

    November 15, 2021 at 2:14 pm

    Lots of Polish/Ukrainian delicatessens, sold farmers cheese in the 1970s and the years before.

    Reply

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