Cooking Off the Cuff: From a Trip To Germany, Potatoes For Dessert - Sächsische Quarkkäulchen

Cooking Off the Cuff: From a Trip To Germany, Potatoes For Dessert - Sächsische Quarkkäulchen
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Twice during our nine-day visit to eastern Germany - once in Leipzig and once in Dresden, both of which are in the state of Saxony - Jackie and I (and our friend) ate Sächsische quarkkäulchen for dessert. These are Saxon pancakes made with mashed potatoes and the fresh cheese known as quark, lightly sweetened if at all, and served with applesauce or, sometimes, another fruit compote, and whipped cream. I'm forever making to-cook lists on our travels, and (between us) not many of its entries actually get eaten once we've returned home. This trip, however, yielded three to-cook entries; I've already made them all, and you'll read about them in the next few weeks, if you care to.

Pancakes made of quark or something like it are common enough in places such as Russia and Poland (Dresden is half an hour's drive from the Polish border), and I had my say on them a few years ago. The addition of potatoes - lots of them - makes these very different in flavor and texture. They're also a cinch to make, and very forgiving when it comes to proportions: some cooks use more quark than potato; some equal weights; some more potato than quark.

I'm of the latter cohort because I like flavor of potatoes and the appealing slightly glutinous consistency they lend the pancakes. And there's still plenty of quark to add the gentle, fresh dairy tartness. For a dozen plump pancakes about 2 inches (5 cm) across, I used an eight-ounce (225 g) tub of quark made in Vermont. If you don't find any, you can puree a 7-ounce (200-g) package of farmer's cheese in a food processor with a couple of tablespoons of sour cream, and I'll bet a dense strained Greek-style yogurt would be an excellent substitute too.

A while in advance, I boiled three quarters of a pound (350 g) of peeled potatoes in lightly salted water, then put them through a ricer (a food mill works too, and so does a sieve if you have an assistant to do the work). When they'd cooled a while, I added the quark, two egg yolks, the zest of the lemon whose juice I'd used in my applesauce, a quarter teaspoon of fine salt and a tablespoon of sugar. I stirred it all together with a rubber spatula then vigorously stirred in half a cup (75 g) of flour to yield something between a thick batter and a soft dough: just dense enough that you can form half-inch-thick disks by hand if you're careful. Note that you may very well need to add more flour depending on how liquid your cheese mixture is.

Some cooks add raisins. Because of the apple or other fruit accompaniment, I don't see the advantage of that. And some add vanilla and/or a little cinnamon, which isn't a terrible idea at all.

After a rest (minimum 10 minutes on the counter or up to a couple of hours in the fridge) form the pancakes and fry them over low heat for five minutes per side, so that they brown slowly enough to make sure the inside is cooked through. You can use whole or clarified butter, or neutral oil. I used brown butter (strained) from last week's bread-dipping adventure. Sprinkle with granulated sugar before serving, two per portion, with unsweetened whipped cream and applesauce (or, as I did, with briefly-cooked plums - with the option of applesauce for the purists).

It doesn't seem to me that these would re-heat very well; they would still taste good, but the texture would probably suffer. Leftover batter, on the other hand, will hold for a couple of days in the fridge, though you may need to adjust its consistency before cooking: you could stir in a little more flour or you could just spoon it into the frying pan as is and forget about forming perfect disks by hand.

That's one entry checked off on the to-cook list!

Riced potatoes and Vermont quark

Potatoes For Dessert: Sachsische Quarkkaulchen

Popular in the Community

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE