Pashka

It is hard to describe this without either sounding as though I am exaggerating...or as though I might be trying to put you off eating it. I think it's indescribable. The nearest thing to Ambrosia I have ever eaten?

I have heard it described as "Russian Easter Cake" but it really isn't like cake. My father described it as similar to "raw cake mixture" (don't forget how that was always so much nicer than the finished product). But unlike raw cake mixture, you really can eat large quantities of this without regretting it. My personal theory is that it's due to the sour ingredients offsetting the sweet in an impeccable combination. It is supposed to contain all the ingredients you are not supposed to eat during Lent.

The following recipe was handwritten for my mother by the granddaughter of a Russian woman - Kyra Mahoney - who, if my memory of family legend serves me correctly, left Russia as the revolution started. When my mother enthused and begged for the recipe, she was a little chary about disclosing it... Her daughter Chris, my mother's oldest friend, said that her mother would stand at the stove, stirring endlessly. These were pre-Google days. Eventually, Kate, her granddaughter, managed to obtain her Nan's recipe - and it is in front of me now: blue biro on green paper, and the ingredients in evidence on the paper. Here it is, unamended, although I have inserted metrics for my own ease:

"1 lb cream cheese (454 g)
1 lb cottage or curd cheese (454 g)
8 oz butter (227 g)
4 egg yolks
1 1/2 gills (6 fluid oz) sour cream (170 ml)
10 oz caster sugar (283 g)

1 - 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla essence
6 oz blanched almonds (flaked) (170 - 171 g)
4 oz seedless raisins (113 g)
3 oz mixed candied peel (85 g)

Mix cream and cottage cheese together and turn into a cheesecloth.

Leave in a cold place (not fridge) to drip overnight to make sure that cheese is really dry.

Next day, rub through a nylon or hair sieve.

Melt butter and allow to cool but not to set again.

Turn egg yolks and sour cream into a basin and mix together.

Add sugar and vanilla and whisk altogether for about 10 minutes or until sugar has dissolved. (Remember this was written before electric instruments were used).

Stir into the sieved cheese.

Add almonds, raisins and chopped candied peel and turn into a heavy saucepan.

Put the pan on a very low heat and cook stirring continuously.

When mixture shows signs of boiling (in about 1/2 hour) remove it from the heat at once (1st bubble) and stir until it is almost cold.

Take a sterilised flower pot (nearest approximation to a pashka mould) or a similar shaped vessel (not metal) of about 2 1/2 pint capacity with draining hole(s). Line it with cheesecloth and urn in prepared mixture.

Set the pot on a rack over a plate. Lay a piece of greaseproof or waxed paper over the mixture, set a saucer or small cake tin base in a plastic bag on top and weigh down about 2 lb weight.

Leave in a cold place/refrigerator if poss overnight.

Saucer must just fit inside lid of pot. We don't bother with greaseproof or plastic bag but fold excess muslin over top of pashka. I hope you like it."

Here is some commentary on the above, based on my having made it twice.

Bear in mind that the very first bit needs to be done in advance, but it takes fewer than 10 minutes: I recommend a Good Friday night and have an unhurried Easter Saturday making it: it doesn't actually take that long - say two hours before it's in the moulds and ready to go in the fridge. But one of the many points of this is that there is real pleasure to be derived in making it so give yourself plenty of time.

I use tea towels as my cheesecloth.

I use unsalted butter.

I use vanilla extract rather than essence.

This is the only recipe I know that uses gills as a unit of measurement.

The toughest part of this recipe is pushing the cream cheese and cottage cheese through the sieve!

There is no indication in this recipe as to when the butter is supposed to go in. I put it in once I've mixed the egg yolks and sour cream.

I approve of making it in a flower pot and have one that I use exclusively for Pashka. The photograph is of one made in London and eaten in Winchester.

Additional notes based on experience:

1. Having increased the cream cheese and cottage cheese to 600 g each (approximately a 30% increase), the other ingredients should ideally be increased proportionally to maintain balance. As a guide: butter ~300 g, sour cream ~225 ml, sugar ~375 g, 5–6 egg yolks, almonds ~225 g, raisins ~150 g, and candied peel ~110 g. If not increased, the result will be slightly firmer and less rich but still perfectly acceptable.
2. After melting the butter, allow it to cool for about 10–15 minutes. It should be fully liquid but no longer hot—just warm to the touch.
3. The butter should be added after mixing the egg yolks and sour cream together, but before adding the sugar and vanilla. This helps create a smooth mixture and avoids any risk of the yolks cooking.
4. There is no issue with sieving the cream cheese and cottage cheese mixture directly into the saucepan, provided the saucepan is completely cold.
5. After putting the mixture into the moulds, allow it to stand at room temperature for approximately 30–60 minutes before refrigerating, so that it cools slightly and avoids condensation.
6. The pashka should be left in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours before eating, though 18–24 hours is ideal for the best texture and flavour.
7. The cooking stage should be treated as a gentle thickening, not a true boil. Use very low heat and stir continuously, scraping the base and sides. The mixture should gradually become slightly thicker and smoother. Watch carefully for the first sign of a bubble or slight steaming from the surface—this indicates it is just reaching the point of simmering. At that moment, remove it immediately from the heat. Do not allow it to boil, as this can cause curdling or a grainy texture. Continue stirring off the heat until the mixture cools and thickens slightly.
8. For a more traditional result, the cream cheese may be replaced with a well-drained curd cheese (such as tvorog or quark), or the cottage cheese alone may be used if thoroughly drained and sieved. The drier and finer the cheese, the more authentic the texture.
9. For greater smoothness in the traditional manner, the cheese mixture may be passed through the sieve more than once.
10. A more traditional approach avoids cooking altogether, instead combining the ingredients and allowing them to set purely by chilling and draining. If following this method, ensure all ingredients are well incorporated and the mixture is thoroughly chilled under weight.
11. Additional flavourings sometimes used in more traditional versions include a small amount of cardamom or a few drops of rosewater, alongside or instead of vanilla.
12. A traditional mould (often pyramid-shaped and sometimes marked with religious symbols) may be used if available, though any suitably sized, draining container will function adequately.

Wartime economy fudge

No salt in this recipe, I know, but it is the best version I have ever encountered with a flavour that hits your tastebuds like no other. I have heard others say it's more "tablet" than "fudge" but I am not convinced.

The recipe, taken from my book (with the timings inserted by me while making it), then its story:

1 lb granulated sugar
1 1/2 oz marge
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence (I prefer extract)
5 fl oz evaporated milk
5 fl oz cold water

Mix sugar, milk and water. Heat gently stirring with wooden spoon until sugar melts (5 minutes?). Add marge (cut into small pieces). Bring to rapid boil (10 mins). Stir all time. Wipe down sides of pan (don't let residue stick). Boil until soft ball stage (10 mins). Moment comes much sooner than you'd think! Remove from heat. Add vanilla. Cool for 5 mins. Using wooden spoon, beat it, stirring frantically until changes colour and looks creamy (10 mins), pour into greased mould (lined with foil).

I recommend AGAINST chocolate versions, rum 'n' raisin versions or whatever. Gilding the lily.

Mum's commentary on the recipe in my book:

"This came from a book in Bedworth Library. During World War II my mother swapped tea and other rations for the ingreedience and made something similar."

Bedworth Library was our local library in the first house where I ever lived, in Windmill Road, Exhall. I had always assumed the recipe my mother had recorded in her book - from which this is copied - was the very same that her mother had used, recorded in copperplate handwriting on faded yellow paper. Not so, it would seem. Mum would make this and then bag it for Christmas presents. Once she had made some shortly before halloween and some trick-or-treaters came round. She presented each of them with a piece and they went away not looking altogether impressed. I like to think that they would have changed their minds on tasting.

There was another occasion when, as her contribution to my nursery school's Christmas sale, she presented me with a polystyrene cup of fudge. Someone else had been more ambitious in terms of quantity and variety and had donated several bags of, if I remember correctly, rum and raisin flavoured fudge. My mother's contribution was rather lost in the array. Whether as a gesture of annoyance or otherwise, another boy and I stole some of the fudge from its table and were caught. Our punishment was to miss the showing of the school cine film. But later Justice relented and we were allowed in to see the second showing. I remember looking guiltily at the headmistress, Mrs Hartley, as we sat down in the darkened room. But that was the end of the incident.

The closest I have ever got to finding my mother's fudge on sale commercially was in a shop, now closed, in Canterbury. It had been recommended by my rather splendid landlady, Maureen de Sausmarez. I once brought some home. Having tried a bit, my mother claimed it was not of the best but then undermined her argument, repeatedly signalling she wanted more by mimicking a bird making high-pitched shrieks. Until the bag was empty.

A sad story on which to end. My grandmother - referred to in my mother's commentary above - had Alzheimer's Disease and in its early stages, she gave my brother and I a few coins with which to buy "Henley fudge" which, she told us, could be found in the shop at the bottom of her road. It may have existed decades before but the only fudge my brother and I could find was Cadbury's ("a finger of fudge is just enough...") and that is what we ended up buying, supplementing the money we'd been given with our own.