Tvarohový koláč

The story

Koláč is the Slovak word for a cake or tart, and koláče of many kinds belong on the Easter table. A cheese koláč is not reserved for Easter, but at Easter tvaroh, the fresh curd cheese, has a particular place. A Noviny.sk report from Bardejov notes that people traditionally gave up dairy, eggs and meat during the forty days of Lent, so the holiday brought them back. A TASR report on Easter food lists tvaroh and other cheeses among the foods of the holiday, along with ham, eggs and the various koláče baked for it. Ethnologist Katarína Popelková of the Slovak Academy of Sciences named tvaroh and poppy-seed rolls brushed with butter among the Easter sweets of western Slovakia. In Spiš and the east, ethnologist Katarína Babčáková told the SITA agency, the head of the household cut the Easter koláč in five places for the wounds of Christ, kept pieces behind a roof beam and added some, with eggshells, to the first furrow in the field. This version follows a SITA recipe that uses one quick butter dough for both the base and the crumbly top over a lemony curd filling. Bake it on Holy Saturday, March 27, 2027; it slices cleanly after a night in the refrigerator.