Quark and strawberry cheesecake

strawberry quark/cheesecake

In my last visit to Berlin, I came across this strange cake filling called quark. On investigation, this is the east European name for cream cheese. Super easy to make at home, no need to rely on processed Philadelphia cream cheese any more.

1. Add 60ml whey (sieved from naturally set yogurt) to a liter of organic milk, keep at room temperature (20-30˚C) for around 12-36 hours depending on temperature. The milk will curdle. (Keep at 43˚C will turn to yogurt)

2. Use a fine cloth to filter the solid out, will need to stir and scrape around every now and then, to your desired firmness of the quark or cream cheese formed. Keep both in fridge, the liquid could be used in next processing or use in cooking.

3. With the cream cheese, could mix with lemon juice, zest, honey and use as a cold lemon cheesecake filling. Need to consume fast as liquid will continue to ooze out from cream cheese.

4. To make baked cheesecake, mix 250gm cream cheese with juice of one lemon, zest, 2 tbsp honey and 3 eggs as filling.

5. For the base, grind 200gm mix nuts, mix with 50gm butter, a big pinch of salt, 30gm sugar, press evenly on to bottom of spring form baking tin, lined with a piece of baking paper. Cool to solidify in fridge.

6. Fill the baking tin and bake at 160˚C until just set (whole surface wobble gently when shaken), depending on height of filling, around 30-50 minutes. Cool down before serving.

7. Spread a thin layer of sour cream on the surface, layer cut strawberry on top.