Ingredients
The milk
- 2 litreswhole milk
- pasteurised, not UHT
- see the note
The souring
- 300 mlcultured buttermilk
- or 4 tablespoons live yoghurt
- or 4 tablespoons soured milk
- or 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- for the quick acid version
Equipment
- a heavy pot
- a thermometer
- helpful but not essential
- a sieve and muslin
- a large bowl
To use it
- in syrniki, the fried curd cakes
- in vareniki, the dumplings
- in kalduny
- in a baked babka
- with sour cream and sugar
- with sour cream and dill
Directions
- Use whole pasteurised milk. Do not use UHT milk. Warm the milk to about twenty-five degrees. Stir in the buttermilk or yoghurt.
- Cover it and leave it somewhere warm. Give it twelve to twenty-four hours. Add a starter rather than relying on chance. It should smell clean and sour, like yoghurt. Discard it if anything is wrong.
- Warm the set milk very gently to about forty degrees. Never let it boil. Use a water bath. Stand the pot in a larger pot of hot water. The jar of soured milk was set in a pan of hot water in the oven.
- Heat the milk to about eighty degrees. Take it off and stir in lemon juice. It curdles within a minute.
- Line a sieve with muslin over a bowl. Pour the curds in gently. Pour gently rather than tipping. Two hours gives a soft spreadable curd.
- Drain it properly. Hang the tied cloth, or press it gently with a weight. Keep the whey. It goes into okroshka and cold soups.
- Use as little flour as holds them together. Too much flour makes them heavy and bready. Keep it covered and use a clean spoon. That matters little if you are baking with it.
Technique
- Do not use UHT milk — the proteins are denatured and will not form a proper curd, giving a thin sludge. The commonest failure with any home curd.
- Never let it boil. Boiling makes the curd tough, rubbery and grainy; gentle warmth to about forty degrees gives a soft creamy one. Use a water bath — the traditional method of setting the jar in hot water in the oven is exactly that.
- The whey turning from milky to clear yellowish is the signal that the curd has separated.
- Drain to the texture you need: two hours for soft and spreadable, four to six for firm, overnight for very dry. Wet tvarog is the single commonest reason syrniki fall apart, so drain it properly for those.
- Pour the curds in gently and press only lightly. Breaking them up or pressing hard gives a dense rubbery result.
- Push it through a sieve before using it in a filling. Five minutes’ work breaks every lump and gives a far smoother result.
- Use as little flour in syrniki as holds them together. Too much makes them heavy and bready.
- Simply leaving milk to sour on its own — prostokvasha — worked with raw farm milk carrying its own bacteria. Pasteurised milk left out does not reliably sour and can spoil instead, so add a starter rather than relying on chance.
- The cultured route tastes of soured milk; the lemon-juice acid route is quicker, tastes of lemon, comes out firmer and more granular, works in baking and is less good eaten plain. The atlas says so rather than pretending they match.
- Judge the soured milk by smell: clean and sour like yoghurt is right; putrid, yeasty or ammoniac is not, and any mould means discard it.
- Keep the whey — bread dough, okroshka and cold soups, cooking grains — and it keeps five days refrigerated.
- Fat-free tvarog is dry and chalky and works in baking and not much else.
- It is unsalted, which is exactly why sweet and savoury uses are equally normal.
- Babka means different things in different kitchens — in Belarus it is both a set curd cake and a grated potato bake. The atlas records both rather than conflating them.
- Raw milk is traditional and carries risk from harmful bacteria; pasteurised is the safer route and the atlas leaves the choice to you.
- Topfen and suzma are the same technique under other names, and the atlas cross-references rather than pretending they differ more than they do.
Substitutions
- Quark, Topfen, twaróg, tvaroh, túró or biezpiens all substitute exactly.
- Well-drained ricotta substitutes at some cost in tang.
- Cottage cheese, drained and sieved, works in cooking.
- Lemon juice replaces the culture for a quicker acid-set curd.
- Soured milk or live yoghurt both work as the starter.
- Semolina replaces some of the flour in syrniki and gives a lighter cake.
Variations
- Syrniki fry it into curd cakes with egg and flour.
- Vareniki and kalduny take it as a sweetened dumpling filling.
- Tvarog babka bakes it into a set cake with semolina and raisins.
- Tvarog with sour cream and dill is the savoury breakfast.
- Tvorozhnaya zapekanka is the baked curd pudding of the same kitchens.
- Syrki are the glazed curd bars sold as a sweet.
History
Soured milk drained to a fresh curd, the base of syrniki and of countless Belarusian bakes and dumpling fillings.
Frequently asked questions
What is Tvarog?
Tvarog is a cheese & dairy from Belarus: fresh curd cheese eaten with sour cream or baked into pancakes. Soured milk drained to a fresh curd, the base of syrniki and of countless Belarusian bakes and dumpling fillings.
How long does Tvarog take to make?
Tvarog takes 15 minutes plus draining of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes makes about 500 g. It is rated easy to make.
What can I substitute in Tvarog?
Yes, within limits. Quark, Topfen, twaróg, tvaroh, túró or biezpiens all substitute exactly. Well-drained ricotta substitutes at some cost in tang. Cottage cheese, drained and sieved, works in cooking. Lemon juice replaces the culture for a quicker acid-set curd. Soured milk or live yoghurt both work as the starter. Semolina replaces some of the flour in syrniki and gives a lighter cake.
What is the most important thing to get right in Tvarog?
Use whole pasteurised milk. Do not use UHT milk. Warm the milk to about twenty-five degrees. Stir in the buttermilk or yoghurt.
