Rákóczi curd/cottage cheese pie

Total Preparation Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes

Course 40 slices

Difficulty Level: Medium

Ingredients (40 slices):

for the pastry: 375g wheat flour, 180g butter of room temperature, 90g granulated sugar, 3 tbsp (15ml) sour cream, 3 egg yolks, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda (or baking powder), zest of 1 lemon
for greasing the baking tray: butter
for the filling: 1kg cow’s milk curd/cottage cheese (túró), 6 egg yolks, 200g granulated sugar, 2 sachets of vanilla sugar, 6 tbsp (300ml) sour cream, 80-100g raisins, 3-4 bread rolls (or the same amount of bread), 50g breadcrumbs, grated zest of 1 lemon, 3 egg whites
for the topping: 6 egg whites, 240g powdered sugar, 1 jar (300g) Kecskeméti apricot jam

1. Place the ingredients of the dough in a bowl, mix and knead quickly and then set aside (you could place it in the fridge but that is not definitely necessary). Press the curd cheese through a sieve to prepare the filling. Stir the egg yolks with the two types of sugar until nearly white and then add the curd cheese, the sour cream and the raisins. Cut the crust off the rolls or the bread – the filling needs to be nice and white – and cut the inside into small (raisin-size) dices. Mix these and the breadcrumbs with the curd cheese cream, flavour it with the grated zest of a carefully washed lemon and then add and fold in the whipped egg white as well.

2. Coat a large baking tray with butter, spread the batter evenly into the pan, poke it all over with a fork and then pre-bake it in a pre-heated oven at 190 ºC (or in a fan-assisted oven at 170 ºC) for about 12-14 mins. Then spread the curd cheese cream over the pastry evenly. Put the cake back into the oven for another 25 minutes or so.

3. Whip the egg whites till they are half-hard, then continue to whip till hard while adding the sugar little by little. Fill the whipped egg white into a frosting bag with a star shaped nozzle and draw a grid on top of the curd cheese cream. Put the cake back into the oven for another 20 minutes or so. At this point turn the heat down to about 130 ºC and continue baking to dry the meringue on top for about 30 minutes. It is best when the meringue on top is baked to a nice golden-brown colour and quite dry. Sieve the apricot jam and while the cake is still warm squeeze it in a thin layer between the bars of the meringue. Slice it with a knife dipped into warm water.

Note:

Murphy’s law applies: There is a typo in the cook book of Master Rákóczi in none other but the Rákóczi curd cheese cake. Before the digital age printing houses used letters made of lead so there was a greater chance of misprints occurring than today. The list of ingredients included 120g of egg yolk which, in itself, might not be very unusual, since even today in some cases the amount of eggs required is specified in terms of weight. However, preparation of the recipe starts like this: “The flour, the butter, 60 grams of sugar, the sour cream and 2 egg yolks ....”, i.e. it mentions butter, which is not included in the list of ingredients, along with 2 egg yolks. Those in the know are aware that this is a shortcrust pastry, generally made of ingredients in proportions of 1:2:3, that is 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat and 3 parts flour. So instead of 120g egg yolk the recipe should have said 120g butter and 2 egg yolks.

ONE LARGE BAKING TRAY, APPROX. 40 SLICES