Vatrushka are very popular cheesecakes in Eastern European cuisines, mainly in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Basically it is a dough that in the center contains cheese flavored with fruit and / or liquor and suitably sweetened.
They are usually made in the form of individual cakes of about 5 cm in diameter (2 inches) but if you want to make a dessert for this Christmas we are going to make a giant one that you will distribute in portions. When it comes to individual cakes, the dough used is brioche type. When it is large it is better to use short pastry, the one that does not rise. This way you save a lot of time since you can buy it in any supermarket.
INGREDIENTS :
- 1 short pastry (for the base)
- 1 Kg (2.2 pounds) of cottage cheese
- 125 grams (4.4 oz) powdered sugar
- 100 grams (3.5 oz) sultana or Corinthian raisins (pitted)
- A quarter cup of sour cream
- 4 eggs
- 3 tablespoons of cornstarch
- 1 sachet of vanilla sugar or vanilla essence
- Some kind of liquor (brandy, pomace, anise etc)
First of all, we are going to rehydrate the raisins by immersing them in the liquor of your choice.
If you do not have sour cream you can easily make it with whipping cream (with a 35% fat) adding half a teaspoon of lemon juice to the amount listed. We let it rest for an hour and we will have the sour cream.
Next we are going to make the filling.
First we separate the whites from the yolks. We booked the first ones.
Mix the yolks with the cheese, the icing sugar, the vanilla sugar, the sour cream and the cornstarch. We also add the rehydrated raisins. We beat well.
Now we are going to put snow stitches on the whites. We add a few drops of lemon juice and a pinch of salt. In this way they will get to the point of snow much more easily. We beat them until they are firm, that is, when the bowl is turned they do not fall.
We add the whites to the cheese mass, carefully beaten so that they do not lose air. It is done slowly with vertical movements using a paddle.
In a circular mold of about 20 cm (aprox 9 inches) we place the dough and shape it. What is left over we remove it by cutting it.
In the center of the dough we pour the mixture that we have made with the cheese.
We preheat the oven to 150 degrees (300 F). We introduce for about an hour and that's it. The surface is browned and the shortcrust is visibly done, something that maybe depending on the oven you have is produced in advance, so keep an eye on the vatrushka.
We extract, let cool and ready to eat.
