Perhaps your grandmother's name was not Zakhava, but something else. Mine were Libe and Miriam. They baked the most delicious pies, including cottage cheese ones. While I'm recalling their taste, read the recipe from Grandma Zakhava. Her pie (like other grandma's pies) is delicious, airy, tender and very beautiful. Everyone eats this pie - even those who can't stand cottage cheese, despite Shavuot. A simple recipe, a wonderful pie, even those who are not big fans of cottage cheese gobble it up.



Curd pie with shortbread crumbs – recipe of grandmother Zakhava



Ingredients for a 26cm round pan or a rectangular pan made of Pyrex


For shortcrust pastry – bottom crust and shortcrust crumbs:


100 grams cold butter, diced

100 grams (1/2 cup) sugar

1 egg

250 grams (1 ¾ cups) flour with baking powder (baking flour)


For the filling:


1 kg soft cottage cheese 5% or 9% fat

65 grams (6 tablespoons) vanilla pudding powder

1 egg

160 grams (3/4 cup) sugar

Grated zest of one lemon

50 grams (1/3 cup) raisins


Method of preparation:


Making the dough for the first stage of baking:


1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. In a blender with a metal blade, mix the butter, sugar, egg and baking flour until the dough is uniform in consistency. In general, shortcrust pastry is one of the most unpretentious, it always turns out, and the preparation takes five minutes.


2. Divide the dough into two equal halves: wrap one part in film and put it in the freezer for half an hour until it hardens. Stretch the other half, place it on the bottom of the mold and press it to the bottom and sides of the mold.


3. Bake for 15 minutes until the dough is golden. Remove the pan with the dough from the oven and leave the oven on at 180 degrees.


The second stage of baking.


Prepare the filling, combine the dough and filling and bake the pie


4. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients for the filling.


5. Spread the filling evenly on the bottom crust and smooth it out. Grate the frozen dough and sprinkle it on the filling layer.


6. Bake for 35 minutes until the crumbs are golden brown and the pie itself is more "stable", only slightly "jiggly".


7. Cool, put in the refrigerator for at least 4-5 hours before serving. This pie can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days and always served cold. Like any cottage cheese pastry, Grandma Zakhava's pie tastes better chilled.


Photo: Afik Gabay


Baking Instructions: The Secret of Wilheim Croissants

Photo: food.walla.co.il

Baking Instructions: The Secret of Wilheim Croissants

10.05.2013 15:41

Yael Ezer – editor walla


Have you already decided what to bake for Shavuot? Why not choose the croissants made by the legendary bakery "Vilheim" from Hod Hasharon, the most famous croissants with cottage cheese in our particular holiday country.


The Wilheim Bakery in Hod HaSharon has been in business since 1949. Time seems to have stood still inside the bakery. Yolanda Wilheim, who is already 91 years old, immigrated to Israel from Slovakia, taking her baking equipment with her. Today, her daughter Miriam and granddaughters Keren and Hani run the bakery. Visitors and customers come to the bakery to relax and pamper themselves.


The Wilheim pastry shop is known to everyone who grew up in the Sharon region. Wilheim croissants are not just known, they are famous and considered a miracle of baking in Israel. The secret to their success is in the yeast dough, which tastes like shortcrust pastry. This dough is rolled out, folded, rolled out again – there is a lot of work here, but in the end you get a multi-layered dough with a special taste. This dough is quite fatty – but that is why it is so soft, “live” and aromatic. It contains up to 30 percent butter. And now, after you have been warned, let’s start “rolling” the croissants (perhaps in your childhood they were called puff pastry, buns or cheesecakes – it depends on the homemade Freken Bock).



Croissants with cottage cheese



Ingredients for 40-50 small croissants:


1/2 kilogram white flour

75 grams (2/3 cup) sugar

25 grams of fresh yeast

5 grams (teaspoon) of salt

1 egg

200 ml (3/4 cup) water

350 grams of margarine or butter at room temperature (50 grams for the first stage of dough preparation + 300 grams for rolling out the dough)


For the filling:


250 grams of cottage cheese "tiv taam"

75 grams (2/3 cup) sugar

A packet of vanilla sugar

Grated zest of half a lemon

Juice of half a lemon

1 egg yolk

50 grams of cornstarch

15 grams vanilla pudding powder


Method of preparation:


Dough:


1. Place flour, sugar, salt, yeast in a mixer bowl and mix everything. At the first stage, you can mix the dry ingredients with your hands or a spoon. After all the dry ingredients are mixed, add margarine or butter, egg and water.


2. Turn on the mixer at medium speed and mix for 8 minutes until the dough has a uniform texture.


3. Let the dough "rest" for 20-30 minutes at room temperature. This "rest" after the vigorous activity of the mixer allows the dough to "open up" and is easier to roll out.


Mix all ingredients in a mixer



We fold the dough and mix it with butter.


4. The stage of "folding" the dough and mixing it with butter: after "resting", roll the dough into a rectangle. Transfer this rectangle to a work surface sprinkled with flour. Place pieces of butter or margarine on the upper third of this rectangle. Cover the butter with the lower part of the rectangle, and the third third (we can't do without algebra) - on top of the already folded dough. It sounds difficult - but once you start doing it, you will easily understand. Important: in order for the butter to be absorbed into the dough as best as possible, the butter must already be soft and at room temperature.


5. Roll out and fold the dough again. Wrap it in cling film and place it in the refrigerator overnight.