Kwarktaart with Mr. and Mrs. Post
Funky Tea Time was invited for some kwarktaart! Kwark whaaaat?! So we travelled to The Netherlands to see what it was all about.
The invitation: from the welcoming-as-pie Mr. and Mrs. Post.
Their place: a quaint, inviting house in the posh and touristy town of Castricum, The Netherlands.
The setting: Christmas time, cosily furnished home with a brightly-lit Christmas tree, fairy lights, and Christmas sculptures adorning the place. An impressive wall-to-wall bookshelf, a royal blue TV cabinet with delicate embossing, hard wood yester-year buffet and hutch, and splendidly decorated dinner table, all added to the ‘home sweet home’ splendour and warmth.
Speaking of the dinner table, it was set up with a white tablecloth featuring a delicate hand-embroidered blue pattern. The serving-ware was the very popular Boerenbont china, which is a traditional pattern used on pottery from the Netherlands. The distinctive floral pattern is hand-painted with simple brush strokes of red, yellow, green, and blue. After dinner (which I must add was a fabulous mouth-watering salad, and a chicken stir-fry) the much-anticipated kwarktaart and apple pie appeared, heaven!
Think of it as fromage frais
Kwarktaart is quite distinct in taste in comparison to typical cheesecakes so if you’re like me and you’re not a fan of cheesecake, don’t be deceived. The word ‘kwark’ is Dutch for quark; a type of cheese. It is not an aged cheese and is soft and white, resembling “fromage fraise”.
The kwarktaart contains a sponge cake layer at the bottom, topped with a mixture of strawberries, whipped cream, lemon juice, and sugar, which made for rather unique taste, and I thoroughly enjoyed all two servings of it. The presentation was almost as good as the taste, for it was served on a Royal Albert Country Roses cake stand with matching spatula.
Golden and baked to perfection
But wait there’s more: a home made apple pie that was golden and baked to perfection! The apple pie was served with a dollop of cinnamon flavoured ice cream – great combination! And of course there was the obligatory teas by Pickwick and favourites of mine while in Europe – glass Pickwick mugs. To finish off, there were some Belgian chocolates.
Exclusive recipe privileges!
Because you are all privileged Funky Tea Time readers, Mr. and Mrs. Post have passed on their recipe for us all to try! And stay tuned for the appel taart (apple pie) recipe! Coming soon!
You will require:
* 1 sponge cake
* 500 grams of kwark
* 1 tin of canned strawberries
* 1/8 of a cup of whipped cream
* 5 leaves of gelatine
* 8 grams of vanilla sugar
* Lemon juice from one lemon
* 100 grams of sugar
* Cake tin
You will need to:
* Soak the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water so that they become soft
* Boil the juice from the tin of strawberries and gradually add the leaves of gelatine one by one, then leave to rest for 5 minutes
* Cut the cake into slices and lay them on the bottom of the cake tin
* Place the kwark in a bowl and mix in the lemon juice, sugar, vanilla sugar, strawberries, whipped cream, and the fruit juice with the gelatine
* Combine all ingredients well and then leave for a few minutes
* Pour the mixture into the cake tin
* Place in the fridge for a couple of hours to set
* Call Mr. and Mrs. Post so that they can come and taste it
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