Name: Ostkaka (Baked Rennet Curd Cake)
Prep time: 1 h 10 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 2 h 10 min
Yield: 8 servings
Cuisine: Swedish
Ingredients: 3 L milk; 60 g plain flour; 1 tbsp liquid rennet; 3 eggs; 300 ml double cream; 85 g sugar; 100 g almonds; 2 bitter almonds; 10 g butter; 200 g sour cherry or strawberry jam; 200 ml double cream

Ingredients

8servings

milk · ordinary pasteurised, not UHT3 L
plain flour60 g
liquid rennet · strengths vary, so use what the label gives for 3L of milk1 tbsp
eggs3
double cream300 ml
sugar85 g
almonds · blanched and roughly chopped100 g
bitter almonds · finely grated, or 1/2 tsp almond extract2
butter · for the dish10 g
To serve
sour cherry or strawberry jam200 g
double cream · whipped200 ml

Steps

Whisk the flour into a cupful of the milk with no lumps. Warm the rest of the milk in a large pan over low heat to 35°C, lukewarm to a finger.
⏲ 10 min
Off the heat, stir in the flour mixture. Pour in the rennet, stir up and down for 20 seconds only, then stop touching it.
⏲ 20 sec
Cover and leave 30-40 minutes. It has set when a spoon slid in at an angle and lifted splits it cleanly and clear whey gathers in the split.
⏲ 35 min
Break the curd up small with a whisk. Leave 5 minutes and the whey separates. Tip into a cloth-lined sieve and drain 15 minutes. Do not squeeze.
⏲ 20 min
Heat the oven to 175°C. In a large bowl mix the eggs, cream, sugar, almonds and bitter almonds, then add the drained curd and mix it through.
⏲ 5 min
Pour into a buttered 2L ovenproof dish and bake at 175°C for about 60 minutes, until the top is risen and golden and the middle barely wobbles.
⏲ 60 min
Cool 20-30 minutes and serve lukewarm, spooned out from the middle, with the jam and whipped cream.
⏲ 25 min

Variations

The jam. Sour cherry jam is the Småland tradition; strawberry and cloudberry are common too, and some add ice cream.
Cold. It can be eaten cold the next day, but it is softest lukewarm.

More detail and the reasons why (2)

Hälsingland. Usually no egg and never almonds. Smoother, and slightly squeaky to bite. It is sliced and warmed with cream in the oven or a pan and served with a fruit-juice sauce or cloudberries, sometimes with saffron in it.
Quick, with cottage cheese. A short Småland version skips the rennet: cottage cheese, eggs, sugar, chopped almonds and cream, mixed and baked. Much the same texture in far less time.

Tips

UHT milk will not set. Mozzarella gives the same warning. A dish that uses rennet starts with choosing the milk.
Do not squeeze the whey out. Take only what drains through the sieve. Squeezed, the grains press together towards cheese, and the egg has less room between them in the oven.
Two or three bitter almonds, no more. They are strong, and harmful in quantity. If they are hard to find, or you would rather not, use almond extract.

More detail and the reasons why (4)

The milk is set twice. Rennet sets it first; the curd is broken and drained; then egg and oven heat set the spaces between the grains. Cuajada is "mozzarella stopped just before the knife", a trembling gel eaten as it sets. Cheesecake mixes egg into a finished cheese: "What sets this is egg and heat." Ostkaka takes a curd that has passed the knife and lost its whey but has not gone on to become cheese, and puts the egg's work on top of it. That is why the Småland kind is said to resemble scrambled eggs: rennet makes the grains and egg fills between them.
Do not stir once the rennet is in. Mozzarella gives the reason: "Rennet works by waiting for casein it has already cut to knit together, and stirring while it knits tears the network". Breaking the curd once it has set is a different thing from stirring it while it sets.
The flour is in the milk from the start. It goes into the oven with the curd, and cheesecake says what starch does among egg proteins: "Starch granules swollen at 60-75°C get between the egg proteins and lift the setting temperature by tens of degrees." (cooking eggs).
Eat it from the middle. In Småland it is always started from the middle, the explanation being that the middle is creamiest and the edges drier and more burnt. Cheesecake gives the reason: "A 160°C oven drives the outside of a 600g filling well past that long before the middle has set". The edges set first and dry first.

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