Easter Cake with Cottage Cheese

Description

In Romanian: Pasca cu brinza de vaca

Ingredients

Sweet bread dough or Russian Sweet Bread

• 2 lbs / 1 kg flour
• 10 oz / 300 g sugar
• 1½ cups milk
• 6 eggs
• 2 oz / 50 g yeast
• 7 oz / 200 g butter
• 2 tablespoons oil
• vanilla stick
• salt

Filling

• 1 lb / 500 g cottage cheese
• 4 oz / 100 g raisins
• 3 - 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon butter
• sugar to taste
• a little grated lemon peel
• salt

Directions

Sweet bread dough

1. Make a starter from yeast and a teaspoon of sugar.
2. Mix until the consistency of sour cream, add 2 – 3 tablespoons tepid milk, a little flour and mix well; sprinkle some flour on top, cover and let sit in a warm place to rise.
3. Boil the milk with the vanilla stick (cut in very small pieces) and leave it on the side of the range, covered, to keep warm.
4. Mix the yolks with the sugar and salt, then slowly pour the tepid milk, stirring continuously.
5. Place the risen starter in a large bowl and pour, stirring continuously, the yolk-milk mixture and some flour, a little at a time.
6. Then add 3 whipped egg whites. When you finish this step, start kneading.
7. Knead, adding melted butter combined with oil, a little at a time, until the dough starts to easily come off your palms.
8. Cover with a cloth and then something thicker (like a blanket).
9. Leave in a warm place to triple in bulk.
10. If during kneading the dough seems too hard, you may add a little milk.
11. If, on the contrary, the dough seems too soft, you may add a little flour.
12. When the dough has risen well, take a piece of it, place on the floured work surface, give it the desired shape (round, oval, braided, etc.) and place in the baking pan previously greased with butter.
13. Let rise some more in the pan in a warm place.

Assembly

1. Mix the filling ingredients for filling to obtain a homogeneous paste.
2. Roll a pencil thick sheet out of the sweet bread dough (or Russian Sweet Bread). Place in a baking pan.
3. From another piece of dough form a long, finger thick roll and arrange it around the sheet, sticking to the walls of the pan.
4. Place the filling within, without covering the roll on the edges.
5. Make two more such dough rolls and place them over the filling in an X shape.
6. After the cake has risen a bit in a warm place, use a little egg wash over the dough rolls.
7. Set in the oven to bake. Remove from the pan when it is cold.