Farmer’s Cheese Cake (Tvarožník)
Ingredients: leavened dough, farmer’s cheese, sugar, milk, cinnamon, vanilla sugar
Prep Time: 30 minutes (if you have the dough ready)
Tvarožník is a cake made using tvaroh or farmer’s cheese. It is basically cottage cheese from which all the juice (whey) has been squeezed out. My grandma made this cake from the same sweet leavened dough she used to make orechovník (nut roll) and makovník (poppy seed roll).
Start off with making the filling. You can do this while the dough is rising. Combine the farmer’s cheese (tvaroh), two tablespoons of sugar (cukor, to taste), about half a cup of milk (mlieko), and one packet of vanilla sugar (vanilkový cukor, about a tablespoon).
Also add one packet (about a tablespoon) of cinnamon (škorica). Mix and press well so that you get a mixture with the consistency of paste. Add more milk if needed.
Then take one of the sections of the dough, and run over it few times with the rolling pin. The grab it in your hands, and work it from the bottom side using your knuckles. In the end, the dough was about an inch thick.
Place it onto a greased baking pan, and press out the ends. Then grease the top with oil (olej).
My grandma then used this circular cutting tool to perforate the edges. This is done just for looks. Evenly spread the filling on top.
Lightly grease the top with oil and let sit for some 10 minutes.
Then bake on “high” until the edges turn golden brown. Enjoy!
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I am so very happy to find this recipe! It seems to be the same dish that my grandmother made for me, calling it “slovak pizza.” Such a treat! Mom didn’t make it or have a recipe I could find. Figured I wouldn’t enjoy it ever again.
Thank you so much!!
That’s neat. I have never heard anyone call it that but it does sort of make sense. it sure does look like a pizza. Are you going to try making it? If so, let me know how it turns out.
We also called this Slovak pizza. I have been trying to find the right consistancy of the cheese and now because of this recipe I have found it. My grandmother also made this with lekvar spread on top and she would also sprinkle poppy seed on it. I can pronounce the Slovak word for it but I don’t know how to spell it. I’ll try it phonetically in English…Bale (like a bale of hay) e (e like in enter) sh (the closest I come come is like the sound of sh when you are telling someone to shhh – be quiet or softer).I make it for my family; however, all of us can’t eat the poppy seed so I just spread plain lekvar (prune butter)on the dough. What a treat! Have even spread apricot on top. My grandchildren love this so now there is another generation loving this recipe.
My Grandma and Great Aunt made a dish called Pagach. It seemed to have the same dough as yours, but the cheese was mixed with potato (like in Pierogi) Do you have a recipe for Pagach? Thanks for all the work you do to keep Slovak Cooking going. I appreciate the recipes very much!
I live in Southern California and cannot find the farmers cheese. My mother used to call it dried cottage cheese.
Yeah, it is exactly that – cottage cheese minus the liquid whey. One thing you can try is to grab some cheese cloths, wrap cottage cheese in them, and squeeze out the liquid. It’s messy though.
I live in Brazil and brazilian people is definitely a Pizza Lover. Never saw a pizza like this, so, as a curious person and a pizza lover, I’m dying to try it, it seems so good ! =)