Anybody ever make it?

Old Widow woman next door is from Minnesota, Nordic ancestry. She wants to make some for Christmas, I'm trying to track down a source for raw milk, which seems to be what most of the recipes call for.

Apparently it's similar to custard/cheesecake and served with Ligonberries..

Excellent stuff - especially following a meal of potato bologna.

Let me ask some friends from that region.

I love it! I was introduced to it after my cousin married a girl of Swedish decent. His mother-in-law just passed a week ago, but give me a little time and I will see if I can get the recipe from his wife as I'm sure she has it. I'm not a big dessert person, but it is wonderful!

Mike

Good info..

The Widow had a xeroxed piece of paper out of an old cook book. Comparing that recipe with recipes found online showed big discrepancies. Any proven recipes would be greatly appreciated...

This forced me to dig out the cookbook put together by the church in which I grew up. It was more or less an exclusive club populated solely by descendents of Swedish immigrants. We somehow were accepted as the token Germans.

As alluded to earlier, there appear to be various versions of "Oostakaka" as I learned to pronounce it. Here are two rather dissimilar recipes from the cookbook. (Notice the spelling.)
I would imagine that I probably enjoyed both of these recipes somewhere along the line.

From Lorraine Brown (Mrs. Waldo)
Karla's Ostkaka

5 eggs
3/4 c. sugar (or less)
1/2 pt. whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 pt. creamy cottage cheese (2 c.)

Beat eggs. Add sugar, cream, vanilla, and cottage cheese. Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Stir every 10 minutes.

From Lenore Youngberg (Mrs. Arlyn)
Ost Kaka

2 gal. milk (unpasteurized)
1 c. flour
1 rennet tablet
1 c. sugar
pinch of salt
3 eggs
1 c. cream
1 c. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. almond

Heat 2 gallons of milk to lukewarm. Mix flour in enough cold milk to make a medium paste; add to warm milk and stir in rennet tablet, which has been dissolved in a little lukewarm water. Stir until milk begins to curdle. Let stand 1/2 hour and pour into colander to drain off whey. Beat eggs, cream, milk, sugar, salt, and flavorings together. I assume that the almond refers to a liquid. Mix with curds. Put into buttered dishes and dot with butter. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes at 350, or until set. Can be stirred after baking 1/2 hour. Makes approximately 3 1-quart containers.

Love ostkaka. Swedes eat the hell out of it. Most of the ones I have eaten also had slivered almonds in the mix too. It was served warm like pie and lingon or any other fruit compote is dabbled on top.


The first and best one I ever had was after a late season moose hunt in the forest surrounding a dairy farm in Sweden where I was living at the time. It was made with first milk from a young cow that just had her first calf. We hunted all day in sub zero weather and warming up top a bowl of fresh made ostkaka and a hot cup of coffee at fika time was an experience I will not forget until the day I die.

Traditional recipes are likely referring to bitter almond extract but that is hard to come by most places. Use regular almond extract as it is just as good.

Will try to find some...



This is REAL close to the recipes I was looking at. Raw milk and rennet seem to be the common theme for most.

Having a tough time finding raw cow milk, but I'm finding lots of raw goat milk. Wonder how big of a change that would be.?