Syrnyk
Galician Cheesecake- Yield
- One 9-inch square cake, 16 pieces
- Active
- 45 minutes
- Total
- About 6 hours, including cooling and chilling
- Difficulty
- Medium
The story
Syrnyk is the baked cheesecake of Lviv in western Ukraine. It is made from tvorih, the local fresh curd cheese, beaten with eggs, butter and sugar, often with raisins and citrus zest, baked in a tall rectangular pan, and covered with a thin layer of chocolate glaze once cool. Recipe writers at UNIAN call it one of the city's culinary symbols, served in Lviv cafes and restaurants. It also belongs to the Easter table: Zaxid.net, the Lviv news site, published its recipe in April 2026 as an Easter Lviv syrnyk and described it as a traditional dessert with a tender, creamy texture. When the city held its first food festival, Lviv on the Plate, in April 2012, the menu for the gala dinner in the courtyard of the Potocki Palace named a traditional Lviv syrnyk with raisins and coffee as dessert. Recipes vary from house to house. Chef Yevhen Klopotenko adds grated boiled potato and folds in whipped egg whites, while other versions use cornstarch or semolina. For Easter on May 2, 2027, bake it a day ahead; it cuts most cleanly after a night in the refrigerator.
Ingredients and method
The full recipe, with US and metric measures and stand-ins for hard-to-find ingredients, is part of the Easter edition. Buy it once and keep the PDF.
Want to try first? Frankfurter Grüne Soße is free to cook.