Polish 'dew' cheesecake: shortcrust base, curd cheese, and a meringue beaded with golden droplets
The cheesecake you remember from Polish neighbourhood bakeries: a shortcrust base, a layer of curd cheese with raisins, and a meringue of the egg whites spread over the hot cake for the last quarter hour of baking. A few hours after baking, usually after a night in the fridge, little golden beads of syrup appear on the meringue, hence the name 'sernik z rosą', cheesecake with dew. Nothing is wasted: the yolks go into the pastry and the filling, the whites on top.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Base 15 min
- Base chilling 30 min
- Cheese filling 15 min
- Baking 60 min
- Meringue 15 min
- Cooling 60 min
Step by step
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Make the shortcrust base
Rub the cold cubed butter into the flour and sugar into crumbs, add the yolk (keep the white in the fridge for the meringue) and quickly bring together into a ball. Flatten, wrap in film and chill 30 minutes. Warm hands and long kneading melt the butter and the base turns hard instead of crumbly.
Ingredients: 200 g plain flour · 100 g butter · 50 g sugar · 1 pcs egg yolk
Quickly into a ball, then into the fridge
Line the tray
Line the tray with paper. Press the cold dough evenly over the base with your fingers and prick with a fork. Heat the oven to 170 °C. Don't pre-bake the base: under the heavy cheese layer it bakes through with it.
Evenly over the base, pricked
Cream the cheese filling
Separate the eggs; refrigerate the whites. Beat the soft butter with the sugar and vanilla sugar until fluffy, 3 minutes. Add the yolks one at a time, then the curd cheese by the spoonful, mixing on the lowest speed only until combined. Stir in the lemon zest.
Ingredients: 1000 g curd cheese for cheesecake, ground three times · 100 g butter · 150 g sugar · 5 pcs eggs · 2 tbsp potato starch · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 80 g raisins · 1 pcs lemon, zest
TipThe cheese must be ground at least twice or the filling will be lumpy. Cheese sold in a tub as 'for cheesecake' is ready to use. Don't beat long: an aerated filling rises in the oven and sinks with a crack.
Butter with sugar, yolks, cheese by the spoon
Raisins, starch, onto the base
Scald the raisins with boiling water, dry them and toss with the potato starch so they don't sink. Fold into the filling with a spatula. Pour over the base and level.
Raisins in starch, filling over the base
Bake
Bake 60 minutes at 170 °C on the middle shelf, until the edges are set and the centre wobbles slightly. Don't open the oven for the first 40 minutes.
An hour, edges set, centre wobbling
Whip the meringue and spread it on the hot cake
Towards the end of baking whip all the cold whites (including the one from the base) stiff, adding the sugar a spoon at a time, until the meringue is thick and glossy and the sugar dissolved. Take the cheesecake out and at once spread the meringue over the hot surface with uneven strokes, leaving ridges and valleys. Turn the oven down to 160 °C and return the cheesecake for 15 minutes, until the ridges are lightly golden. Don't let it scorch: it should be golden, not brown.
Ingredients: 150 g sugar
TipMeringue spread over a hot cheesecake sets from below straight away and clings to the filling. Spread on a cold cake it slides more easily and comes away when you cut it.
Stiff whites, onto the hot cake, unevenly
Cool in the oven
Switch the oven off, prop the door open and leave the cheesecake 60 minutes. Then cool fully and chill several hours, ideally overnight. Cut with a knife dipped in hot water, wiped after every cut.
Golden meringue petals, cooling in the open oven
Before you start
Peaches instead of raisins
6 tinned peach halves pressed into the filling instead of raisins: juicier, and children like it.
It sank
Filling beaten too long, or the oven opened too early. Mix briefly on the lowest speed and don't peek for 40 minutes.
Where the dew comes from
The golden syrup beads on the meringue are the 'dew' the cake is named after. They only appear once the cake is cold, most often after a night in the fridge, and not always in the same abundance: that is not a fault. Bake the meringue briefly, just until golden, because dried-out, scorched meringue turns hard.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
