Lithuanian baked cheesecake recipe

Transcript of MumDeeDoes video #13:

Hello my Darlings and welcome to Mum Dee Does. I am Dee, a mum who does it all and today I am making a Lithuanian baked cheesecake.

We're going to use this cheesecake to celebrate James's birthday, which actually has been and gone. With all the excitement about Ronnie's birthday it kind of just uh... ran away from us… So now I'm going to make a Lithuanian specialty, a cake and we will blow out a candle for James. If you missed Ronnie's birthday video you can check it out here.

The process begins by making the milk curds. You would separate your whey from your curds in the milk and then use the curds for this cheesecake and make blaand from your whey. James is an expert on making wines and beers, and alcoholic beverages of all kinds, including blaand. I think it is a recipe that he has resurrected from times gone by and Viking days, and it has become really popular on all the winemaking forums, so check that out as well if it's something you're interested in. I have to admit I quite like it - blaand - it has the ceremonious feel to it and so to go with that let's make ourselves a baked cheesecake. How awesome does that sound?

I have four eggs, a cup of raisins, a cup of semolina, half a cup of sugar, 500 grams of curds, a quarter litre of milk, a pinch of salt and 50 grams of softened butter. 

And the first thing to do is to put the semolina into the milk and give it a good stir and then leave it to absorb and fluff up for about half an hour.

Whilst we're waiting for the semolina to absorb all that lovely milk let's separate the egg yolk from the egg white. I need to learn this...

It's really fun to try to cook with toddlers nearby. But I'm really pleased he’s very engaged and obviously learning a lot.

Okay, I need to take the egg yolk and mix it really well with the sugar: stir stir stir. Now we're adding the curds to the mixed egg: this in here, in there, good job! We're really doing it, this is gonna be a daddy's birthday cake. Put all of it in there!

And I'm really impatient so I only kept this mixture of semolina and milk a quarter of an hour but I got this sort of gloopy paste consistency and I'm going to... I don't need all this milk... Then again, do you know what? Mix mix mix mix mix mix mix.

So we have milk, semolina, curds, sugar and eggs in there.You're right Ronnie can we put a pinch of salt. No, not all of it, just a pinch! Pinch. And now that the mixture is well stirred we're going to add the egg whites and give it a very light stirring. Do you want to stir it?

And now we just need to put the mixture into the baking dishes - I have two - and then sprinkle it with raisins or any fruit of your choice. (And now we need to bake them) Now we need to put these in the hot oven at 170 degrees and bake them for 45 minutes. And if this works out the way I hope it turns out then this cake is gonna be so delicious, as I remember it being. Just the cake of my childhood really!

Sit and watch. These are the baked cheesecakes.

So this is a little cake for James's belated birthday. It looks really good, it looks exactly as it should and I can tell you that it is tasty and the ultimate test for any recipe is whether or not Ronnie is enjoying it - and he really is, so that's a success. Happy birthday, James! Thank you very much! Let’s blow out the candle. Blow out the candle.

Happy birthday! Oh, thank you. Yay! It's tasty, it's good, oh yes!

Thanks very much for watching, subscribe down below to find out what Mum Dee Does next week. Ta ta for now! Goodbye