Pasca – Romanian Easter Bread

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Pasca is a traditional Romanian Easter cheesecake or Easter bread. A sweet yeast dough filled with a smooth cheese and raisins filling.

Romanian Easter Bread with Cheese

What is pasca?

This is a traditional Romanian Easter recipe: Pasca de pasti or Easter cheesecake. Basically a cheesecake made with the so-called “cow’s cheese – branza de vaci”, but untypically baked in a sweet bread case.

Pasca together with the sweet bread filled with walnuts – cozonac, the lamb and the eggs are the most important culinary and spiritual components of Orthodox Easter.

The sweet bread represents the joy of celebration, that is why it is something that is baked not only for Easter but also for Christmas, weddings or christenings.

The lamb represents the Christ, the innocent sacrificing himself for the other, and the eggs represent life, the red eggs symbolize the sacrifice that Jesus made for the people.

Pasca represents the blessed bread, originally the bread eaten by the Jews when they left Egypt. In the Christian symbolism, it represents the promise of resurrection and of eternal life.

Traditionally the sweet bread must be brought to the church on the Easter night to be blessed by the priest. He will sprinkle it with red wine, and through this ritual, the bread will become a representation of Jesus’ sacrifice. The Easter bread is normally adorned with a dough crucifix on top, but I didn’t want to overdo it.

Ingredients

Cheese:

• Pasca is made with branza de vaci or cow’s cheese in Romania.
• The name of the cheese doesn’t only mean that the cheese is made with cow’s milk, it is the name of a certain kind of cheese, some kind of light, mild-tasting cheese, similar to quark or cottage cheese.
• As you will probably not be able to find that cheese outside Romania, you can replace it low-fat quark, cottage or farmer’s cheese, which are all similar in taste, although the consistency of the cottage/farmer’s cheese is different.
• If you decide to use cottage or farmer’s cheese, blend it with an immersion blender until smooth before you add it to the filling.
• Some people also use ricotta to make pasca. I am not a fan, in this case, I think the ricotta is too bland and doesn’t have the acidity that the other kinds of mentioned cheese have.

Yeast:

• I use active dry yeast, which needs to be activated/proofed/bloomed before adding it to the rest of the dough ingredients.
• Instant dry yeast is a good substitute, and it doesn’t need to be activated. Just mix it with the flour and continue with the recipe.

Semolina:

• The semolina is needed to bind the cheese filling, don’t leave it out.

Vanilla:

• A fresh vanilla pod is wonderful, but if you don’t have it, you can replace it with more vanilla extract. Add the vanilla extract to the lukewarm milk.

Raisins:

• I love raisins, but I know many people who don’t care for them. If you are not a fan, you can just leave them out, although I highly recommend you use them.

Other ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, oil, eggs, lemon zest.

 

Tips for making pasca

• Making the yeast dough in a stand mixer is definitely easier.
• If you don’t have one, knead the dough as long as possible with the kneading attachments of a hand-held mixer and continue to knead with the hand.
• You will need some flour to help you here because the dough is rather sticky.
• Add only very small amounts of flour to help you with kneading, the dough should remain soft and slightly sticky.
• Make sure you knead the dough long enough so that the gluten to form. That will make the bread rice nicely and have the right consistency.
• I only used 3 tablespoons sugar for the filling. However, if you would like the filling to be sweeter, you can add 1-2 tablespoons of sugar more.

How to store?

• Keep the sweet bread in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It will be fine for at least 5-6 days.
• Due to the cheese filling, pasca is not suitable for freezing, the filling would become soggy when thawed.

More traditional Romanian Easter recipes

Drob – Romanian Chicken Pastete – Drob de pui – a delicious chicken appetizer for the Easter brunch, a twist on the traditional Romanian lamb drob.

Romanian Pork Meatball Soup – Ciorba de perisoare.

Romanian Boeuf Salad – I don’t think that there was ever an Easter in Romania when we didn’t have this salad.

Roast Leg of Lamb – This is the centerpiece on any serious Easter table in Romania.

Lamb Stew – Incredibly tender lamb pieces stewed in an aromatic sauce.

Cozonac – Romanian Sweet Bread with Walnuts – This is the most traditional sweet thing you will find in every Romanian family on Easter and Christmas.

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