Nirvana

Sutra

This is a special one: this recipe is the gateway to nirvana.

Nuff said.

No seriously. This is it.

Ingredients

Note, I will do 2 lists even though some ingredients repeat, not to confuse in the process.

Dough base:

0.45 kg flour

0.17 sugar

0.18 butter

1 egg yolk

1 whole egg

2 generous spoonfulls sour cream

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder (if not using self-rising flour)

Cheesy feeling, I mean filling, filling:

0.9 kg curd cheese (Polish twaróg)

0.2 butter

0.25 sugar

3 eggs + 1 white (use up leftover white from dough)

1.5 cornstarch

a dab of milk (to dissolve cornstarch in)

optionally: cake aroma, vanilla, rum, what have you (I go virgin usually, but do not consider aroma a heresy)

Optionals:

Walnuts, choc chips, melted chocolate, cranberries, sour cherries - your pick! My personal fave is walnuts, sometimes chocolate or even both (as you'll see in this example) but I would strongly encourage dark, the cake will be fairly sweet.

Procedure

If you don't have a food processor for mixing through the cheese, or consider it too much of a faff (fair, I do too), put cheese in the freezer beforehand and take out with enough time on the day to defrost - or defrost in a basin of warm water in its packing (see pic)
Start with the dough, mix the dry ingredients
Add the butter - I'd advise recently taken out of the fridge, cut with a knife into smallish pieces, then work it into the flour with your hands - it is quite an enjoyable process in fact
Add 1 egg + 1 yolk, work further, it might not easily coalesce yet, that's ok
Add the cream and work into a smooth mass - this part is also fairly enjoyable :)
Put in the fridge and let it meditate in the cool - suggest at least 30 mins, but longer might be even better, e.g. prep it in the morning, bake in the afternoon
Once dough ready to ascend to the next karmic level, take about a third and roll out into a thin circle (see pic) - ok if not exactly a third, as each third will be a layer of cake, so ok if bottom one is heaviest - pro tip: do the final round of rolling already on the baking paper, otherwise transfer from rolling mat / slab onto tray will be tricky!
Pop in the oven at 170 - 180 deg for about 13 - 15 mins, or just till it is nicely golden (see pic)
Roll the second and third layers and have ready on baking paper to swap with the ones coming out of the oven - I use 2 baking trays for expedience
When second layer is in the oven, melt butter in a pot (preferably thick-ish bottom, *not* tefal / non-stick as you'll need to use a hand-mixer)
Chuck in the curd cheese - if you have defrosted it, just tip over into the pot, if you are going with the food processor option, you wanna first give it a quick whizz
Mix it and let it warm up, add half of the sugar
Mix egg yolks with the remaining half of the sugar, either in a food processor or just manually, and add to the pot
Beat the egg whites till stiff and gradually mix into the pot
Don't forget you probably have the last pastry layer in the oven! Or are you more organised than me and you've already checked it / taken it out..?
Once the pot starts to bubble (lava-like, not like boiling water), mix corn flour with just enough milk to dissolve, and then - very gradually - pour in while mixing (if you used food processor for cheese, you probably have a fairly smooth mixture now, so might do away without hand mixer, but if you use frozen cheese method, I'd highly recommend hand mixer to both avoid corn starch lumps and get better smoothness of the filling)
When it starts to bubble again, it is ready!
Final step! Spread cheesy goodness over the heaviest pastry layer - ok and even advisable while still warm - and continue till running out of pastry layers.