Sheep cheese in a dessert? Many would say – impossible. But inhabitants of the Krk island will tell you otherwise. This is exactly what they have combined in their cake called presnac. Crumbly filling with a note of citrus and salty flavour will thrill everyone at the end of each bite. It had the same effect on us, so we strongly recommend you try it.
For the pastry:
250 g (8.82 oz) soft flour
pinch of salt
125 g (4.40 oz) butter
1 egg
For the filling:
500 g (17.64 oz) fresh young sheep cheese
1 lemon
4 eggs
250 g (8.82 oz) semolina flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder (7.5 g)
300 g (10.58 oz) sugar
1 pack vanilla sugar
125 g (4.40 oz) butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
Preparation
Put the soft flour, salt, cubed softened butter and egg into a bowl. Mix it all together well to get a uniform pastry. Wrap in a plastic foil and put in refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.
Meanwhile grate the fresh sheep cheese and lemon rind. Squeeze lemon juice. Mix the flour and baking powder in a small bowl. Separate yolks and egg whites, and beat the egg-whites.
In a big and deep dish mix the yolks with sugar and vanilla sugar. Then add softened butter cut in small parts and continue to mix. During mixing add olive oil. Stir grated cheese, lemon juice and rind. Gradually add flour and beaten egg-whites into the mixture.
Divide the pastry in 4 parts. Roll the pastry on a slightly floured surface. Then put a metal plate (diameter 14-16 cm/5.5-6.3 in) over it or a smaller mould so that you could cut a round form along the outer rim of the plate. Put the pastry into a plate and fill with a quarter of the filling. On the edges of the pastry press it with your hands with spaces in between to get “bows”. Repeat the procedure with the rest of the pastry and filling.
Bake in an oven previously heated to 180 °C for 40 minutes.
Serving
Sprinkle baked presnac with powder sugar and cut in slices.
Preparation time
2.5 hours
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