Curd cheese cake with white vanilla chips

When I'm stressed, I bake, it's my way of coping with problems. The last night I couldn't sleep because of the blinking mouse under the bed. I could hear it rustling the papers, and actually saw it running in and out. I managed to nod off around 4am, but by 6am Sasha was already up.
I can't lift the bed, as it's very heavy, it's one of those boxed double beds.
We haven't had mice for a long time, so I need to rethink what to do about the problem. We live in a very old house, and I imagine there's plenty of space between the wooden floor boards and beams where they can live happily ever after.
Sasha is also not in a good mood, as he wanted to go out today. He spread out several picture symbols for me - walk, cafe and books (bookshop), but as his father is not here, I cannot take him out.

Last week I bought a pack of Polish curd/cottage cheese, thinking of baking a cake of some sort.
Curd cheese is a very popular ingredient in Russian cuisine, there are so many cakes and bakes which use it.

Curd cheese cake with white vanilla chips
Ingredients:
400g curd cheese
150g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
1tsp baking powder
zest of 1 lemon
4 medium eggs
2tbsp corn flour
250g self-raising flour
50g vanilla chips (Hershey's Premier white chips, vanilla flavour)
1 pack of cheesecake spice mix (optional)
a bit of vanilla (optional)
4tsp icing sugar + lemon juice for a thin icing

Grate the zest of 1 lemon in a deep mixing bowl.
Beat in the eggs with the caster sugar and softened butter, add curd cheese, baking powder, flour, corn flour, vanilla, spice mix and and mix well. Last end the vanilla chips, and mix them in well.
The cake batter is quite thick. Spoon it carefully in a well oiled cake tin. Put the cake tin in an oven preheated to 180C for 50+ minutes (depending on the size of the tin). Check with a wooden toothpick if it's ready. You might need to lower the temperature and bake it for another 10 minutes, until the skewer comes clean.
Once the cake is cooling out of the oven, mix the icing sugar with lemon juice to reach a not-too-runny consistency, and spread it on the top.
Serve warm or cold. It will keep well for a couple of days in the fridge, wrapped in foil.

In this recipe I used a pack of Polish curd cheese - twarog, which is more grainy in comparison to the British curd cheese brands, and comes as a block rather than in a tub. The one I bought is called Twarog Tlusty (curd cheese, full fat). It is very similar to the Russian type of cottage/curd cheese I remember from my childhood.
The spice mix Kamis Przyprawa Do Sernika I Mas Serowych was another of my recent finds in the local Polish deli. This is the first time I've used it. It is a mix of sugar, vanilla, lemon and orange zest, cardamom and flavoring.
You can easily swap it for a mix of vanilla, cardamom and lemon zest.

Traditional curd cheese cake would include raisins soaked in sweet wine or tea, or/and sometimes dried apricots, also soaked and then chopped. Some cooks like adding mixed peel, or whole almonds.
Again the ratio of curd cheese to flour could vary from 50/50, to almost zero flour (just a couple of tablespoons). I used an almost double amount of cottage cheese to flour.

Vanilla chips are not found in traditional Russian recipes, but my guys do not like raisins in baking very much. Milk chocolate chips could be another possible ingredient.

Frylight Avocado Oil Cooking Spray was one of the products in the latest Degustabox food box. I use this oil, as well as the other in the range - Olive oil and Coconut oil - to spray the cake tins. I find them all useful for baking, as you can coat the inside of the tin evenly. They are particularly great for fancy bundt cake tins.

Since I used the remains of the corn flour and vanilla chips, as well as the jelly decorations, I'm adding this recipe to the #KitchenClearout linky hosted by Cheryl at Madhouse Family Reviews blog.

Curd cheese cookies with jam

There are many Russian recipes, using cottage cheese or curd cheese, which is an excellent ingredient for both sweet and savoury baking.  The other day got a big tub of curd cheese in Waitrose deli just for 45p, and since I wanted to bake some Russian-style cookies for a long time, this was a good chance to use the cheese. Curd cheese cookies are lovely with a raspberry or apricot jam, but made with Christmas preserve with mulled wine (a new tasty jam from Mackays) they were elevated to a different level. I say "were" because there is less than a half left already, and there were over 20 earlier this morning.

Curd cheese cookies with jam (makes 20+ cookies)
Ingredients:
80g caster sugar
150g butter, softened
a pinch of salt
30g ground almonds
300+g plain flour
270g curd cheese
Mackays Christmas preserve with mulled wine (about 300g, almost a whole jar)
a bit of milk, less than 2tbsp

In a big mixing bowl beat the softened butter with caster sugar and a pinch of salt. Add the ground almonds, flour, curd cheese and mix well. First use a fork, then your hands to knead the dough. It is pliable but quite thick dough. Roll it in a big ball, and place in the fridge for 15 minutes.
Divide the dough ball in half, roll out the dough to 5mm thickness and cut small squares with a knife (about 9x9cm). Place a teaspoon of jam on each square and fold two sides to make an open envelope. Brush a bit of milk over the side where the flap goes over, to "glue" the sides.
Place the cookies on trays covered with the oiled foil or parchment paper and bake in the oven preheated to 200C for about 20 minutes. Check after 15 minutes if the cookies are golden in colour, they might be ready by then,

Take the trays out of the oven, let them cool for about 3 minutes, if you can wait that long. They are delicious hot and cold, with tea or coffee.

I used Mackays Christmas preserve with mulled wine in this recipe, but any good quality raspberry or apricot jam will do. New jam from Mackays is made from strawberries, raspberries, black currants, red currants, red wine among the other ingredients. This festive jam made with whole fruit has a great taste and smells lovely too of mulled wine. It's another fabulous new addition to Mackays' range of scrummy goodies.

These cookies will make a nice foodie gift. They will keep for a few days in a closed container but don't cook them too far in advance.

Disclosure: I received a few jars of new preserves for the purposes of creating a recipe.