Quark (cheese) - Common Uses

Common Uses

Quark is often used as an ingredient for sandwiches, salads, and cheesecake, called Käsekuchen or Quarkkuchen in Germany, Quarktorte in Switzerland, Topfenkuchen in Austria, "kwarktaart" in the Netherlands, syrnik in Russia, tvarohovnik in Czech and Slovak, and sernik in Poland. In these cakes, the quark is typically mixed with eggs, milk or cream, and sugar, and baked. A firmer variant, called Schichtkäse (layer cheese) is sometimes used for Käsekuchen. Quark flavored with vanilla or fruit is used as a dessert in the Netherlands and Germany. In German, this is called Quarkdessert.

Quark, vegetable oil and wheat flour are the ingredients of a popular kind of dough, called Quarkölteig, used in Germany as an alternative to yeast-leavened dough in home baking, since it is considerably easier to handle and requires no rising period. The resulting baked goods look and taste very similar to yeast-leavened goods, although they do not last as long and are thus usually consumed immediately after baking.

In Poland, twaróg is mixed with mashed potatoes to produce a popular filling for pierogi. In Russia and Russian-speaking countries, quark, known as tvorog (Russian: творог), is highly popular and is bought frequently by almost every family. As a result, tvorog is a member of the official minimal basket of foods. In Russian families, it is especially recommended for growing babies. It can be simply enjoyed with sour cream, or jam, sugar, sugar condensed milk. It is often used as a stuffing in crepes purchased at many fast-food restaurants. It is also commonly used as the base for making Easter cakes. It is mixed with eggs, sugar, raisins and nuts and dried into a solid pyramid-shaped mass, which in Latvia is referred to as paska. The mass can also be fried, then known as syrnik (served with sweets).

In Austria, Topfen is commonly used in baking in popular desserts like Topfenkuchen, Topfenstrudel and Topfen-Palatschinken (a form of crepes).

In Latvia, quark is eaten savory mixed with sour cream and scallions on rye bread or with potatoes. In desserts, quark is commonly baked into biezpiena plātsmaize, a crusted sheet cake baked with or without raisins. Children are also given a sweetened frozen treat of biezpiena sieriņi (small cheese), small sweetened blocks of quark dipped in chocolate.

In Switzerland, quark is recommended by some physiotherapists as an alternative to ice for treatment of swelling associated with sprains, etc. It can be cooled in a refrigerator and then applied to swollen tissues (enclosed in a plastic bag). The advantages over ice are that it doesn't get so cold, reducing risk of damage to treated tissue, but stays cooler longer.