Thuringian cheesecake with caraway and hard cheese – sweet meets salty

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 200 ml milk
• 200 ml water
• 250 g raisins
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 vanilla pod(s), including the pulp
• ½ tsp, heaped caraway seeds
• ½ tsp, sautéed cardamom
• 200 g flour
• 100 g quark, 0.1% fat
• 4 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 50 ml milk
• 1 egg(s)
• 1 kg quark
• 200 g whipped cream
• 4 eggs
• 200 ml milk
• 2 vanilla pudding powder
• 1 lemon(s), juice
• 100 g sugar
• 200 ml milk
• 2 tsp cardamom
• 1 tsp caraway seeds
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 60 g grated Parmesan or other hard cheese
• 100 g butter flakes

Instructions

Working time approx. 45 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 1 hour 45 minutes

Quark cake with quark-oil dough, for 12 pieces

For a 28cm springform pan. The day before, place the raisins in a jar with the ingredients for the stock and let it sit overnight. Quark and oil dough: Place all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix, then stir in the oil, egg, and quark, and add enough milk to form a dough that’s easy to knead. Roll out the dough and place it in the springform pan. Pierce holes in the dough with a fork. Quark mixture: Mix the sugar, cream, eggs, and lemon juice. Stir in the custard powder and quark, and mix until smooth. Drain the raisins briefly and fold them into the quark mixture. Then pour it onto the base. To sprinkle, grind the cardamom, caraway seeds, and sugar in a mortar and pestle, then sprinkle a thin layer over the quark mixture. Be careful, the caraway seeds are very dominant. Sprinkle with about 60g of Parmesan cheese. Use the cheese as if you were sprinkling salt on top. This is not a cheesecake! The line between “yuck” and “sensational” is very thin! Bake in a preheated oven at 160°C (fan oven) for about 50 minutes on the lowest rack, then quickly spread a few knobs of butter on the cake and bake for another 10 minutes. The cake is done when the middle third is still a little wobbly. I like to let the cake cool with the oven door slightly open. Sweet meets salty – this original, old recipe is only common in the Thuringian Slate Mountains. The classic Thuringian way would be to use yeast dough and bake the cake on a baking sheet. In my opinion, however, the quark and oil dough is more palatable, faster, and not as dry as yeast dough the next day. Therefore, I’m using quark and oil dough here.