Ewa's cheesecake recipe

This has been requested several times since our workshop at Truro Library in February. It is surprising that culinary vocab is so challenging! Folding in! Crumbling! Quite a lot of technical terms about rather subtle techniques. But here it is. It is extremely good.


BLACK AND WHITE CHEESCAKE
by Ewa Cimochowska

Cake:
- 0.9lb/400g of flour
- 6 tablespoons of sugar
- 3 teaspoons of vanilla flavouring
- 0.45 lb/200g  of butter 
-  teaspoon of baking powder
- 1 tablespoon of cocoa
- 2 tablespoons of sour cream 
cheese mixture :
- 2.2 lb/1 kg of Quark soft cheese
- 1.5 cup of sugar
- 4 tablespoons of melted butter
- 5 eggs ( yolks and whites separetly )
- 1 tablespoon of custard powder

Preparing a baking form: Butter the tin. Then dust the entire buttered surface with fine, dry bread crumbs (the kind you can buy at the supermarket or you can make them yourself) by turning the tin on its side and slowly rotating it. Invert the tin and shake out excess crumbs.


Mix cake ingredients together with your hands until well blended . Form into two balls and put into the refrigerator for half an hour. During this time prepare cheese mixture. Mix the egg yolks with sugar. Add cheese, melted butter and custard powder. Beat (on low to to low-medium speed) thoroughly, until completely smooth. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into the cheese mixture.   (You can also add a few raisins, if you wish.)


Crumble one of the dark cake balls coarsely into the baking form and spread evenly to create a base for your cake. Pour cheese mixture and crumble another dark ball of cake on the top. You can gently press the top dark cake into the cheese mixture so that they mix a little.


Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4 . Put the cheesecake in the centre of the oven and bake for about an hour. The cheesecake is done when the middle layer is firm.  Let it cool completely on rack. It can be served after two or three hours, but ideally is left until the next day.

Creating new map boxes at Truro Library

A very gentle day after the meetings and discussions of last week... the opening of the newly refurbished Truro Library, Truro, Cornwall, and Ewa and I run a drop-in workshop in the Children's Library: I Packed This Myself: What's In A Suitcase? The space is large and airy: the children love making map boxes. And Ewa has made several plates of Polish cheesecake, which she hands around.

The map boxes, designed by the tireless David Cross. They are inspired by four suitcases, with maps of different stages of a journey, which have been created by illustrator Glyn Goodwin.  People can drawn their own maps, reflecting metaphorical journeys they have made, and then cut them up and make them into suitcases.  They can take them home and keep things in them. On the base of each box/suitcase is a key fact about migrant workers and migration. Abbie, aged five, is in the library with her mother and three-year-old brother, Jack, who eats a lot of cheesecake.  Abbie draws things that remind her of home in her suitcase.

 Visitors are very interested in the cheesecake and ask Ewa for the recipe. However she is busy with her own case
She does promise the recipe to one keen visitor, Mrs Vee Stott, who comes back several times for more (we will put the recipe in the post). It is interesting to find that the vocabulary for cooking is quite difficult. It's easy enough to come up with a list of ingredients - but expressions involving actions like 'separating the eggs', 'folding in', 'beating' ... are trickier.
Mrs Stott talks about English cake traditions, some of which are new to me. She tells Ewa about 'cut and come again cakes' - these are fruit cakes, intended to last for some time.
And the expression 'I'm going to straighten that up', which she thinks comes from Yorkshire. Her late husband used to say .e.g 'I'm going to straighten up that bread and butter pudding'. i.e. finish it off.
Later, Ewa and I go to the Cathedral next door for a cup of tea and our usual review meeting. Ewa sees a woman priest for the first time.