Lviv Cheesecake

The coffee is essential.

Here's another recipe that we posted two years ago, all the way back on Day 263. Since we have so many new faces and the subreddit has grown, and since this dish is so utterly delicious, we thought it could use a little more spotlight 🙂

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If you visit Lviv, Ukraine you will be thrown into a whirlwind of little coffee shops – probably filled with ornate doilies and fine china – or if it's a newer one – exposed industrial piping with mine carts going by… or even staff walking around with whips ready to jokingly strike BDSM-curious patrons. We wrote about these things in our "Visiting Lviv" post you can find here.

Regardless of the ambience of the locale, there will be a few things that are constant on every menu – and Lviv Cheesecake is one of them. This fantastical dessert is also a staple of any family Sunday brunch to impress visitors or provide the homiest feeling possible – and probably with a cup of coffee from Lviv Coffee Factory “Halka”.

No one knows who invented this divine dish, but I would attribute it to the collective subconscious of people of Ukraine. But it is likely that the codification and popularization of the recipe belongs to the legendary cook Dariia Tsvek.

Dariia, you might call her something of a "Ukrainian Julia Child", was born in 1909 in a village in western Ukraine. She became a teacher and led a sort of quiet life. But she also was an avid collector of Ukrainian recipes, which she tested, perfected, and codified and published in her several books. Her biggest success was the bestseller Sweet Pastries (often translated as 'Sweet Cookies') which was first published in 1961 and was reprinted nine times. As far as I know there are no English translations, but we will put a link to a PDF of this book in the comments.

Lviv Cheesecake is most often covered in a chocolate ganache. This luxury was possible due to the fact that a chocolate factory was opened in Lviv in 1882 which made access to exotic chocolate for Lvivians much easier, and it became an overnight staple.

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Today there are more than 32 relatively common variations of Lviv Cheesecake. It may be prepared with lemon or orange peel, coconut shavings, nuts, poppy seeds and even apples. Yet a few things are non-negotiable: you simply must use full-fat farmer’s cheese, good butter, and eggs laid by happy hens.

Lviv Cheesecake tastes as good as it looks, which is unsurprising – however, you may be surprised to learn that making it is really not that difficult.

There are two common types – a kind that is as shown in the image above, only cheese filling with a glaze – and a kind that has dough on the bottom. We will share with you one example from each type, though Dariia herself listed a few versions in her book. We translated them directly from her book, and we kept the charming old-school language she used and did not "modernize" the recipe much.

We will also link a few modern recipes in the comments. Enjoy!

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How to Make Lviv Cheesecake the Old-School Way

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Version 1: Сирник без тіста (Cheesecake Without Dough)

Ingredients

Farmers cheese – 1 kg
Sugar 500 grams
Eggs – 10
Butter – 200 grams
Semolina – 2 table spoons
Boiled potatoes – 3 or 4
Diced walnuts – 50 grams
Vanilla extract – to taste
Almond extract – to taste

Recipe

Separate the egg yolks and egg whites. Mix the egg yolks with sugar. Add melted butter, grind the cheese and grind the potatoes [Editor's note: at the time, this would have been a meat grinder, a staple of any household]. Add Vanilla and a few drops of almond extract.

Mix all well so the mixture is fluffy. Then, beat the egg whites until the peaks form. Add the cheese mixture to the egg whites and semolina. Pour it in a cake pan that has been covered with parchment paper. On top, sprinkle the nuts and a little sugar.

Bake in a hot oven – 210 to 220 Celsius for 1 hour. Do not take it out of the pan until the cheesecake is completely cooled off.

[Editor's note: you can use glossy chocolate ganache for the topping if you really want to impress!]

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Version 2: Сирник Апельсиновий (Orange Cheesecake)

The cake-on-the-bottom version similar to the recipe below from From Солодке печиво by Дарія Цвєк (1961). The version from her recipe does not have chocolate, though 🙂

Dough (bottom part) Ingredients

Flour – 300 grams
Butter – 250 grams
Sugar – 1 tablespoon
Salt – What fits on the end of a kitchen knife

Cheese Filling Ingredients

White farmer’s cheese – 1 kg.
- [Editor's note: If you're using cottage cheese or some other wet kind, the water needs to be pressed out)
Sugar – 300 grams
Eggs – 8 [editor's note: room temperature]
Semolina – 50 grams
Raisins – 100 gram
Almonds – 100 grams (chopped)
Orange – 1

Making the Batter for the Cake part:

Mix the flour with butter cut or shaved into pieces, add sugar and salt and then quickly combine it together knitting it into a tight ball. Leave it to sit in a cold place for 2 hours.

Take the dough, roll it out and place it at the bottom of the cake pan that was previously covered with fat. Poke a few holes with the fork. Bake it for 20 minutes to “half” cook it.

Making the Cheese Filling:

Cheese needs to be grinded with a meat grinder or pushed through the sieve. Then “cook” orange by pouring it over 3-4 times with the hot water and letting it sit in it. When it cools off – cut apart, take out the seeds and grind it using the meat grinder. The melted butter needs to be mixed with the sugar. Add the orange, egg yolks and keep mixing, adding one spoon of cheese at a time. Then take the cheese mix, the egg whites [Editor's note: the egg whites need to be beaten separately first and then folded in, in my opinion], the raisins and the semolina – mix it all up and pour it into the pan. Then sprinkle the almonds and bake it in the hot oven, 210 – 220 Celsius, for an hour. If cheesecake becomes “too rosy” , cover it with a sheet of wet paper (to prevent burning – my addition). Take out of the pan only when it is cooled off.

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Смачного!

Part of our series on Ukrainian recipes! You can find the other entries in the series here:

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The 1054th day of a ten-year invasion that has been going on for centuries.

One day closer to victory.

🇺🇦 HEROIAM SLAVA! 🇺🇦

by duellingislands

7:58 AM; The Sun is Rising Over Kyiv on the 1054th Day of the Full-Scale Invasion. How to make Lviv Cheesecake the old school way!

Lviv Cheesecake

How to Make Lviv Cheesecake the Old-School Way

Смачного!

🇺🇦 HEROIAM SLAVA! 🇺🇦

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