Eastern European Molded Cheese Easter Dessert Recipe

This recipe for a molded easter cheese dessert is known variously as paska, pasca, paskha, and pascha. Russian, ukrainian, and polish cuisine all feature paska, a word that literally means "Easter" Or "Pascal" For the holidays. Easter in a russian orthodox home isn't complete without kulich (a sweet yeast bread similar to italian panettone) and paska blessed by the parish priest. If you can't find dry curd cheese, you might want to make your own farmer's cheese from scratch. It's easy. This no-bake dessert traditionally is made into a round ball, a brand new terra cotta flower pot or pressed into a pyramid-shaped mold, known as pasotchnitza ( in cyrillic) and originally made of wood but now often made of plastic with the sign of the cross and other religious symbols in relief. Paska tastes somewhat like cheesecake without the crust and is often spread on slices of kulich.