Curd cheese with poppy seeds cake

Lietuviška versija štai čia.

I found this cake in the old baking journal and I make it for many years now. Every time I can get the curd cheese - I bake this one:) For me this cake is very delicious, maybe even my favorite. Everyone, who tried, also liked it very much.
It is a very filling and sweet cake. Perfect with a cup of tea.
I honestly do not know where in other countries than Lithuania you can find the main ingredient for this cake. But I still decided to translate the recipe into English - maybe you will want to try to substitute it with something else or make your own curd cheese? Or just simply use the idea for another recipe?
The European Commission included this Lithuanian curd cheese in the protected food list.
Curd cheese looks like this:

Cheese curds are pressed from freshly made curd. So maybe it could be substituted with a very dry curd. I personally never tried to change it with something else, but if I will - I'll let you know.

For the cheese part you will need:

• 250 grams of (about 13% fat) curd cheese.
• 150 grams of butter
• 200 grams of icing sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon of potato starch
• 1 handful of dried fruits (optional)
• 0,25 teaspoon of baking powder

Preparation of the cheese layer:

Butter, sugar and egg yolks mix and mash good together. Grind the cheese (use the meat grinder or mash it with a fork or what you use for mashing the potatoes). Put the cheese and the starch little by little into butter mass, still mashing and mixing everything together. When you finish, add dried fruits and stiffly beaten egg whites. Mix carefully (you don't want to destroy the foam).

For the poppy seed layer you will need:

• 125 grams of poppy seeds
• 175 grams of icing sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of flour
• 0,5 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 handful of dried fruits (optional)
• almond or rum oil (optional)

Preparation of the poppy seed layer:

Scald poppy seeds, pour the excess water away if left and grind them (you can also use the meat grinder here). Mix the egg yolks good with sugar, add the poppy seeds and flour with baking powder, mix good. Add the dried fruits and stiffly beaten egg whites. Mix carefully.

Grease the baking form with fat (butter or oil). First put the cheese layer, then - poppy seed layer. Bake in the oven preheated to 190 C for 70-80 minutes. Check with the wooden stick if ready - it must be dry. Make sure the top is not burning too fast. If it is - cover with foil or reduce the heat.

When you put the cheese layer into the tray, make sure that there are no gaps between the tray and cheese mass, where the poppy layer could leak down.

Icing:

• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 2 tablespoons of milk
• 2 tablespoons of cacao powder
• 2 tablespoons of sugar

Bring all ingredients to boiling while mixing them together. Pour the icing on top of the baked and chilled cake.

Sometimes I make it without icing, just like here:

We already started to cut this one... :)

With icing.