I know, I know, I’ve promised 2 recipes since last week. Something occurred, though. Two days ago, I was searching for a solution dealing with some soured whipping cream... and I ended up clicking the recipes on my blog.

So, I told myself ’Why not make a list of recipes to bake/cook when we’ve got ingredients about to spoil?’

I’d like to keep it updated, by categories!

Basic ingredients

cottage cheese: papanaşi, baked papanaşi, Dobrujan pie

egg whites: Pavlova, pricomigdale, walnut cookies

milk: supangle, muhallabieh, galatopita, trileqe, condensed milk

sour cream: ashta

whipping cream: savarine, molehill cake

yoghurt: Romanian donuts, lemon pound cake

1 yolk: tart crust

several yolks: crema catalana

Fruits

apples: apple pie, apple strudel

bananas: Banoffee Pie, vegan coconut and strawberry dessert, vegan banana cookies, vegan banana and peanut butter cookies, vegan banana pound cake, banana and oatmeal cake, banana muffins

blackberries: syrup

grapes: grape pizza, grape cake

quinces: upside-down quince cake

raspberries: smoothie

rhubarb: rhubarb and strawberry cake, rhubarb sauce

Vegetables and herbs

basil: pesto

eggplant: mirza ghasemi

spinach: spanakopita

Already-processed foods

condensed milk: colchão de noiva, Deliciu

preserves: negresă (Romanian brownie)

rice cakes: chocolate cake bars

♥

Makes 16

500g cottage cheese

a few drops of vanilla extract

zest from one organic orange

2 eggs

2 tbsp of coconut sugar

1/2 sachet of baking powder

330g flour

+sour cream, blueberry preserves

Fried, boiled, and even baked, papanaşi are always tasty!

However, there are times when – even with all the ingredients at hand –, I’m not in the mood to fry them. This recipe is precisely for those times!

They are easy to put together. Mix the cottage cheese, the vanilla extract, the orange zest, and the eggs. Add the coconut sugar, the baking powder, and the flour. Knead until the dough is firm and not sticky. Optional: keep it in the fridge for 45 minutes to turn it even firmer.

Then, divide it into 4. Each piece of dough will make 4 papanaşi. You’ll work with dough balls. Flatten each and make a hole in their centre.

Shape them well before getting them into the oven. They’ll bake for 20 minutes at 180⁰C, in a baking pan lined with baking parchment.

They turned golden and I served them with lots of local sour cream and blueberry preserves.

16 brânzoaice

Dough

450g flour

1 egg

40g dry yeast

350ml sana or yoghurt

Filling

250g cottage cheese

1 yolk

a pinch of salt

150g sugar

raisins (as many as you like)

+1 egg white for brushing, flour for rolling out the dough

I used to love brânzoaice as a child – we could find them in all pastry shops around Romania. So, I wanted to bake them myself. I found an old recipe and I adapted it. It wasn’t as hard as I thought – and it never is when we do it with love.

If you like raisins, hydrate them in a cup of water a few hours before baking the brânzoaice.

Make the dough combining the flour, the whole egg, the yeast, and the sana (=fermented milk found in Romania) or the yoghurt and then knead a bit. Cover the dough and let it rise for one hour in a warm place.

Meanwhile, make the filling by mixing the cottage cheese, the yolk, the salt, the sugar, and the raisins.

On a baking mat, cut the dough into four pieces and roll out each sheet of dough adding as much flour as needed. From the centre of the sheet, cut out a rectangle and split it into two squares. Fill each square with the cottage cheese mix and stick the corners of the square in the middle, by also sticking together the dough on the sides, like a rag bag. Roll out the remaining dough – it will make two more brânzoaice; that’s four for each sheet of dough.  

After you finish rolling out all the dough sheets and shaping the brânzoaice, brush them with the egg white and place them into two baking pans (that’s what I needed) covered with baking parchment. Bake them in the preheated oven, at 200°C, for 12-13 minutes.

I really hope you like them! J

Filling:

430g (fat) cottage cheese

100g sugar

2 small eggs

50g raisins

4 tbsp semolina

Pie sheets:

250g flour

a pinch of salt

25g butter (at room temperature)

130ml water

1 tbsp vinegar

+1 small egg + 1/2 sachet vanilla sugar

Every time I travel to the Danube Delta, I savour this Dobrujan pie.

I’ve always wished to bake it at home, using homemade pie sheets. It seems difficult but isn’t!

At first, make the filling, mixing the cottage cheese, sugar, eggs, raisins, and semolina (which thickens the filling). Let the filling sit in the fridge for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, make the dough for the pie sheets, mixing the flour, salt, butter at room temperature, water, and vinegar. Knead and split the dough into 4 equal parts. Roll out the first as thinly as you can, cover the bottom of the baking pan and leave the edges spill outside the pan.

Spread the cottage cheese mix, roll out another sheet, spread the cottage cheese mix again, and repeat this step one more time, then cover with the last sheet and fold the edges of the first sheet on top of the pie.

Mix the egg with the vanilla sugar and brush the pie with it.

Bake at 180°C, in the preheated oven, for 35 minutes.

This dessert tastes of summer and sunshine! ☼

Baking pan: 34 x 24 cm | 8-10 portions

Filling:

500g cottage cheese

160g sugar

1 egg

Pie sheets:

400g flour (+50g flour if the dough is too soggy)

1 sachet baking powder

2 medium eggs

120g sour cream

100g butter (melted)

1 drop of vanilla extract

+ powdered sugar for serving

+ butter and flour for the baking pan

At Easter time, we never baked pască (=a round cottage cheese and flour pie with raisins). Actually, this pie was our pască, year after year... and my Mom would always bake it. J

First, make the filling by mixing the cottage cheese, the sugar, and the egg and let it sit in the fridge for 1 hour.

To make the pie sheets, prepare the dough from flour, baking powder, sour cream, eggs, butter, and vanilla extract; let it sit in the fridge, as well, for 1 hour. Then, take it out, let it warm up and divide it into two.

Roll out the first piece and place it in the buttered and floured baking pan. Then, spread the filling. Roll out the second sheet and place it on top of the filling.  

Bake in the preheated oven, at 190°C, for 25-30 minutes.

After taking the pie out of the oven, let it cool and then cut it into squares and sprinkle powdered sugar on them before serving. They taste like childhood to me.  

It’s still summer in the southern hemisphere and we’ve had some springish days, so what about some no-bake mini-cheesecakes?

What did I use (made 2)? [multiply the amounts if you’re making this dessert for more people]

35g Oreo crumbs + 2 tbsp melted butter for the base

200g urdă or cottage cheese mixed with            

25g powdered sugar

65g double cream

a generous amount of organic orange zest

a drop of vanilla extract

15g dark chocolate chips [or 2 tbsp Nutella]

Let everything set in round 8cm shapes; freeze the mini-cheesecake for 1 hour, take it out, let it warm, and decorate it with Nutella or melt the chocolate on a steam bath and pour it over it.

It's a fabulous dessert!

20x20 cm baking pan

4 large slices

500g cottage cheese

½ sachet vanilla sugar

½ sachet baking powder

50g butter

1 yolk

3 tbsp semolina

50g raisins

+butter & flour -> baking pan

A new day, a new recipe. This was apparently brought into our family by one of my mother’s friends. The truth is that both my grandmothers and my mother used to bake this cottage cheese cake pretty often. Here’s how—

Mix the well-drained cottage cheese with the vanilla sugar and the baking powder and leave it rest in a bowl overnight.

The next day, boil on a steam bath (I have an item from Ikea which is of real help) on low-medium heat, stirring continuously. You will notice that the cottage cheese thins and then thickens (like vanilla custard – it took 10 minutes in my case). Mix in the butter, the yolk, and the semolina, stirring well.

After removing the mixture from the heat, add the raisins and bake in a buttered and floured baking pan, in the preheated oven, at 140°C, for 15 minutes.

The cake will be very moist (resembling the texture of pudding), but it is very tasty and filling! Even if you end up keeping a couple of slices in the fridge, warm them before savouring them. J