Pască is the main Easter bake of Moldova and Romania. It is a tall round pie of yeast dough with an open filling of sweet cottage cheese: a soft rim, a tender middle and a golden crust. It is baked on Holy Saturday or earlier and taken to church to be blessed with the eggs and other festive food. The name comes from Paști, Easter. Do not confuse it with the Russian cottage cheese paskha that needs no baking: this is a real pie.

What goes into the filling

The filling is called brânză dulce, "sweet cheese", though in fact it is cottage cheese, sometimes with a little urdă. The base is simple: full-fat cottage cheese, eggs, sugar, a little sour cream, vanilla and lemon zest. Many people add raisins, and some add semolina so the mass holds its shape better.

Choose a dry, fatty cottage cheese. If it is wet, the filling spreads and the pie goes soggy inside. Press the cottage cheese through a sieve: the mass becomes smooth, without grains, and does not crack in the oven.

The dough for pască

The dough is soft and rich, made with milk, eggs and butter. The sponge is a must: it makes the dough airy and is your insurance if the yeast is weak. Warm the milk to the temperature of a warm hand, because hot milk kills the yeast.

Add the flour gradually and do not overdo it: the dough should stay soft and stick to your palms a little. The butter goes in at the end, when the base has already come together. Knead for ten minutes until the dough is shiny and elastic. Take the eggs for the dough and the filling out of the fridge in advance.

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Letting the dough rise

Cover the bowl with a towel and put it in a warm place with no draught. An hour and a half is enough, and the dough should double and turn airy. If the kitchen is cool, the rise takes two hours or more. Do not rush it: dough that has not been allowed to rise comes out dense and raw inside.

While the dough rises, make the filling. Soak the raisins in boiling water, dry them with a paper towel and stir them in last, otherwise they darken and leave stains.

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Putting the pie together

Line the buttered tin with the dough so it covers the bottom and climbs the sides. The sides should be at least four centimetres high. A round tin with high walls or a springform tin will do. Fill with the filling up to two thirds of the height: in the oven it rises a little.

Make ropes from the remaining dough. The classic pattern is a cross of two ropes in the middle and a braid round the edge. You can also make a lattice. Press the ropes lightly to the rim, brush them with egg and let the pie stand for twenty minutes before it goes into the oven.

Baking and the golden crust

Heat the oven to 180 degrees in advance. Brush the dough with an egg beaten with a spoon of milk, but do not pour it over the filling: on the cottage cheese the egg stays as a whitish film. Put the pie on the lower shelf so the bottom bakes and the top does not burn.

Bake for about fifty minutes. If the top darkens earlier, cover it with foil. A done pie trembles slightly in the middle but does not bubble, and the dough pulls away from the sides of the tin. Switch the oven off and leave the pie in it for ten minutes with the door ajar. It cools gently and sinks less.

Serving and traditions

Pască is cooled completely in the tin and only then cut, otherwise the filling runs. It is eaten at Easter after the blessing, with dyed eggs. The Easter greeting is one: "Christ is risen!" and "Truly He is risen!".

If you are laying a big festive table, look at the Easter basket of festive products. And if you want another Moldovan sweet bread, bake a cozonac with walnuts or cocoa.

What it costs: Easter groceries: where to buy them cheaper

The whole set at the best prices97.13 leiFound 4 of 5 items

Where to get the set

  • Linella4 of 5 itemsMost items
    81.96 leiMissing: Eggs
  • METRO4 of 5 items
    113.60 leiMissing: Eggs
  • Slavena3 of 5 items
    51.85 leiMissing: Eggs, Sugar
  • Nr13 of 5 items
    79.10 leiMissing: Eggs, Flour
The whole basket

What you can change

Semolina goes into the filling: two spoons to half a kilo of cottage cheese, and the mass comes out thicker. Instead of raisins, take candied fruit or dried apricots chopped small. For aroma add rum or rum essence, a spoon or two. The dough can be scented with orange zest.

If you have no tall tin, bake the pască on a baking tray, fold the edges up and pinch them into a roll. You can also make several small pies on the same principle. Other cottage cheese pies are in the article about plăcinte with cheese.

Storing it and saving money

Cover the cooled pie with a towel and keep it in a cool place for two or three days. Because of the sour cream and cottage cheese it is better not to keep it in a warm kitchen for more than a day, put it in the fridge. Take it out half an hour before serving and the taste turns softer.

Pască slices well and freezes. To save, buy cottage cheese and eggs on offer, and take raisins in a pack. Buy flour, sugar and butter ahead: the pie uses little, and the rest goes into other baking.