I mean – YUM! Of course you do need to like either the ricotta cheese or the farmer’s cheese for this recipe (ehm, made out of skim milk). In our family, we love both. You have to try these Fruit and Cheese Bars! Every time I have farmer’s cheese in my refrigerator, I know what to use it for! Choices are countless. I hope to share it all with you one by one. This particular recipe has three layers of fruits. Favorite of my children and those who like fruity desserts. Please let me know if you like any of the recipes. I love feedback! :)
My children are not super fans of sweets and desserts. Maybe it is a good thing! But this goes well as it has a nice amount of fresh fruit. You can substitute the fruits with other fruit counterparts. I picked up apricots, canned sour cherries and apples. Blueberries are in season right now, so you can go with blueberries, plums, apples and hmmm…. apricots? :) You decide!
Bottom layer of the cake is very nice and moist. Love at first taste… Remember to be nice to your figure and your stomach :) One cheat portion is fine, as long as it is not a regular habit :D
Ingredients:
- 1 stick of butter (113grams) refrigerated not frozen
- 3 eggs (whites separated from yolks. Both are going to be used)
- 1 cup of sugar divided in two
- 1-1/2 cup of flour
- 1/2-1/2 tsp salt
- 1-1 Tbsp vanilla sugar (if you do not have it go with 1-1 tsp liquid vanilla)
- 1 lb of farmer’s cheese or ricotta (500 grams, 17 oz)
- 2-2 baking powder
Directions:
In a medium bowl mix 1/2 cup sugar, flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 2 Tbsp of baking powder and 1 Tbsp of vanilla sugar (or 1 tsp of liquid vanilla). I didn’t have enough baking powder so for this step I added 1 tsp of baking soda (mixed in with tiny bit of vinegar). Mix everything well.
Cut the butter in tiny pieces and add to the dry ingredients. Use a fork or pastry cutter (or your fingers) to blend in the butter. Add the egg yolks and give it a stir one more time. Dough will be (should be) crumbly.
Once the dough is ready set it aside until you are done preparing the filling. After searating yolks from whites do not forget to keep the whites in the refrigerator. Cold whites are better when whipping up a meringue (which we will do in a little bit). Cut the fruit into a bigger chunks. Apples can be grated. Set aside and get on working on meringue!
PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 350F.
Whisk the egg whites until the white peaks form and slowly start adding 1 Tbsp of sugar from the remaining 1/2 cup. Whisk until you are done adding the sugar and strong white peaks form. Place farmer cheese in a medium bowl, add 2 Tbsp of baking powder and vanilla and give it a whisk. Using the smallest speed of you mixer, in two portions add egg whites into the cheese mix.
Drain the juice out of sour cherries if you are using them. If not get on to the next step :)Place crumbly dough on a baking sheet. My baking sheet was approx 16×11 inches. Press the dough into a nice crust.
Place the fruits evenly on the crust; first apples, then apricots, etc. Cover the fruits with farmer cheese and egg white mixture evenly. Bake in a hot oven for about 1 hour or until the top is slightly brown.
Cool completely before cutting this dessert. Be patient and you will love the end result :D
Bon Appetit!
Lola, Where do you get farmer’s cheese in the US? I have been largely unsuccessful. We are talking about tvorog, right?
Jura, I usually get it in our local international store. Most of the Russian stores have it. You can always go with ricotta cheese. But you will have to decrease the amount of baking powder in the filling to 1 Tbsp. Sometime next week (I cannot promise for sure) i will also post how to make a farmer cheese at home the easy way. So stay tuned :D let me know if you need any more help!
Those look really good! I’m gonna have to print the recipe out and make some. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Jacob :) Let me know how those turn out :)
I found you again!! I was wondering why I hadn’t seen any updates since February. Your website has been updated!! I’m subscribed again. These bars look amazing. I missed your bright, lovely photos.
Thank you Memoria :) You are such a sweetheart! I am so fortunate to have ladies like yourself around me. I’ve been out of touch for sometime but I hope this time I am back for good with the new site design and new recipes :D
Lola, this is a wonderful bar!!!!! I love the egg white cheese crust!!I have a HUGE bowl of whites sitting in my fridge (long story on my blog).. I am going to make this ASAP!!!!
Make it! We love these. So refreshing and not too sweet :)
Love the new look! My son starts school in September and just this morning I was thinking of healthy snacks that I could prepare for him to take with him. I already do an oatmeal base version of this which comes out more like a cookie than a cake base. It’s a bit crumbly. Yours looks like it would hold together better.
That’s a great idea you have there! I need to start a tag with school snacks in mind. My mother in law has so many little healthy snack ideas. I need to get them all written down! I hope to be able to recreate them some time soon.
As for the bars: they are very nice. If you do not want these to crumble much, keep them in the oven for a little bit longer. It might loose slight moisture but it is going to hold it together very well.
these look yummylicious! reminds me of your mother in law’s sour cherry tvorog pie which is our favorite! i will make these bars as soon as i get tvorog, unfortunately have only 0.5 lbs left n my fridge, maybe i’ll substitute other half with cream cheese…
Shahnozochka! How are you doing dear?
Yes, it does resemble my MILs recipe. But the nice thing about these is that I do not have to worry about my meringue burning. Try it out and let me know how it turns out :) Kiss your adorable daughter for me!
Lola,
I’m doing great, thanks for asking)) Came back for your meat pie recipe again, it’s to die for! I bake it every other week and it turns out fantastic every time! Thank you so much for sharing! Madinahon is sending you air kisses)) Hope Omar and Osman doing great! xoxo
oh, and, by the way, love your website! new design is cool, pictures are superb as always! good job!
Thank you! :)
Hi Lola! My husband is from Uzbekistan too and I often want to cook dishes from there or Russia, so it’s great you post them in plain English~~
I just made these cheese and fruit bars with nectarine, sour apples and sour cherries, and of course Lithuanian tvoroq. My (usually quite picky) husband gave the thumbs up, and I was over the moon with how they turned out so it’s destined to become a family favorite for sure! I took a hint from one of the other bakers here and added oatmeal to the crust, which turned out very well, and not crumbly cos the ratio was about half oats to flour, or maybe even less. I also almost doubled the recipe to fit an entire baking pan~ Why bother making things in small amounts when they’re so delicious they’ll be gone in a day or so?
Ok, look forward to making more delicious dishes from “home”
Oh WOW! I am sooooooo soooo happy that it turned out great! Often times I get so worried that my recipes might not work for other ladies or gents. Thank you very, very much for sharing your experience with me! I l love you so very much, Katy :D
if you love things made with tvorog, I have some nice recipes to come. I hope you will enjoy them as much :D
Beautiful photos! I think these bars look magnificent, I love the fruit and cheese combo.
Thank you very much Elizabeth :D You are oh so kind to me.
Hi Lola,
I just made this over the weekend and it’s really delicious. Thanks for the wonderful recipe. Also, how thin should the dough be in the pan? My pan was larger than yours so it didn’t reach to the other end, but I don’t know if I made it too thick (it was about a quarter of an inch or so).
I’m definitely going to make this again. :)
Anna
Hi Anna, I love love getting comments from you :) Thank very much for trying different recipes out!
The dough is very thin, really. You can even go less than quarter of an inch. Try with different fruits next time. You will be surprised how each fruit tastes differently with tvorog combo.
Hi Lola!
Very nice receips, thanks very much for sharing them with us!
I’d like to ask you, are there printable versions of your receipes? I’d like to print out the most of them (if I can) as they are very useful. I’ve tried many of your salads, turned out very delicious!
Thanks and Happy Ramadan!
Dear Roya, thank you for your comment! I am planning on adding a PDF of the recipes under every entry. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you the exact time when I can do that. I am a little swamped with work right now, but I will drop you a line as soon as I do so :D
Happy Ramadan to you, too! :)
Hi, i have a question (that might sound silly but anyway…)
1-1 Tbsp vanilla sugar
2-2 baking powder
what does the 1-1 and 2-2 means?
thanks in advance :)
It basically means 1 and 1 (total of 2). Where 1 Tbsp will be used for one purpose, and the other 1 Tbsp will be used for other purposes :D
Thanks a lot for these wonderful recipes. I was pretty excited when I had found recipe for kuk-si. My husband have been asking me about the cold soup he had tried in Tashkent. I guessed it was a Kuk-si. So I cooked it according to your recipe and it turned out very well. Tomorrow I’m going to use your Fruit and Cheese bar recipe. I will let you know the results of my baking. By the way I love your kids name. My husband name is Omar and my dad name was Osman. I have a 4 year old by the name Zaid.
Dear Dila, thank you for logging in to my blog! Please extend my regards to your family. I hope this recipe worked well for you as the kuk-si worked too :D