twaróg

She covers regional versions, ancient recipes, traditions and the stories that lie behind them, alongside contemporary iterations that are vegan, gluten-free and seasonal – such as spiced pierogi filled with pumpkin, twaróg curd cheese and honey or poppyseed pierogi loaded with a sweet, almond-flavoured filling.

2022 August 17, Augustine Hammond, “A paean to pierogi”, in Financial Times, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 Aug 2022

The cheese element is the second trickiest thing to get right, assuming you don’t have access to Polish twaróg, which is now fairly widely stocked in larger UK supermarkets, as well as in eastern European specialists. […] Taste testing them all side by side with twaróg, I find the curds of a full-fat cottage cheese the most similar in texture – through it’s lower in fat, you could always mix in a little of the soured cream to add richness.

2024 February 7, Felicity Cloake, “How to make perfect pierogi – recipe”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 07 Feb 2024

Other regional variations on the cheesecake include the Italian crostata di ricotta (more of a cheese tart in shortcrust pastry), the Japanese, or cotton, cheesecake (a sort of cheesecake-souffle hybrid) and the Polish sernik, a dense cheesecake made with twaróg, a soft cheese available at several UK supermarkets.

2024 August 20, Tim Dowling, “Get rich! 17 surprising and delicious cheesecakes – from sweet potato to gin and tonic”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20 Aug 2024

That said, a true Polish cheesecake is very different. Still creamy and gorgeous like their New York descendants, they’re lighter, crumblier, and based on smooth, churned twaróg, or farmer’s cheese. […] In both traditional and contemporary Polish baking (but the latter, in particular), sweet twaróg fillings are essential to cake culture and yeasted pastries.

2025 October 14, Laurel Kratochvila, “Ptysie, Bezy & Serniki: Choux, Meringues & Cheesecakes”, in Dobre Dobre: Baking from Poland and Beyond, San Francisco, Calif.: Chronicle Books, →ISBN