Practically every family in East Prussia included quark dishes in its daily diet, perhaps without even knowing much about its health-giving properties. People simply made and ate it, mixing it with all sorts of things – horseradish, tomato sauce, berries, nuts, fruit, honey, rum, onion, herbs, every kind of pepper… In this way a new dish, tasty and nourishing, was often born. Recipes for the most interesting of them are collected on this page.
Quark fritters
2 tbsp butter, 3 eggs, 3 tbsp sugar, grated zest of 1 lemon, 500 g quark, 250 g flour, a pinch of salt, 125 g small seedless raisins, sugar and cinnamon – to taste, vegetable oil for frying.
Beat the butter, eggs and sugar until frothy, then mix with the sieved quark, flour, salt and raisins. Shape into small patties (like Russian syrniki, only smaller), fry in vegetable oil, then place on a plate and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. These little quark fritters are good with coffee or as a dish in their own right.
Quark bread
250 g dry quark, 100 g sugar, 2 eggs, lemon zest, 375 g flour, 1 sachet baking powder.
Press the quark through a sieve and mix with the eggs, sugar, grated zest, salt (to taste) and the flour with baking powder. Knead into a dough and bake in a loaf tin at a moderate temperature (180 degrees) for 45 minutes.
Quark bread stays fresh for a long time.
Quark mayonnaise
100 g soft (creamy) quark, 1 egg yolk, ½ cup sour cream (about 70–80 g), 1 onion, 1 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice, a pinch of sugar, ground black pepper – to taste. Optionally, 1 tbsp vegetable oil.
Whisk the quark with the sour cream, add the egg yolk, grated onion, vinegar or lemon juice, sugar, pepper to taste and the vegetable oil. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Chopped herbs can be added to the quark mayonnaise.
This light mayonnaise can be used to dress salads. It does no harm to anyone on a diet.
Quark balls
30 g yeast, 250 g quark, 150 g flour, 2 egg yolks, 1 egg, 75 g sugar, 50 g grated almonds, ½ tbsp grated lemon zest, 1/8 l milk, 25 g butter, 50 g seedless raisins, fat for frying – as needed.
Mix the quark with the flour, add the eggs, sugar, almonds, lemon zest, yeast and melted butter and, gradually pouring in the milk, knead a dough. It should be fairly firm. Then add the raisins, dust with flour and leave to rise.
Bring the fat to the boil. Take the dough a tablespoon at a time, roll into balls and drop them into the boiling fat. When they are golden, lift them out with a slotted spoon and transfer to a colander to let the excess fat drain. Then place them on a dish and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. The dough usually makes 20 balls. In East Prussia they were usually served with coffee.
Quark cake
250 g butter, 5 egg yolks, 375 g sugar, 2 tbsp semolina, 1 kg classic quark, 1 lemon, 1 sachet baking powder, breadcrumbs.
This is the oldest recipe for quark cake.
Beat the softened butter, add the egg yolks and sugar and beat again. Add the semolina gradually, a little at a time, then the juice and grated zest of one lemon, and at the very end the icing sugar. Knead the mixture until there are no lumps left. Place it in a greased tin dusted with breadcrumbs. Bake in the oven for about 1 hour at 180 degrees.
Quark and fruit dessert
250 g soft quark, 50 g sugar, 3/8 l skimmed milk, 1 sachet vanilla sugar, 50 g wholemeal breadcrumbs, cherries or any other berries (to taste).
Mix the sieved quark with the sugar, skimmed milk and vanilla sugar and beat vigorously. Mix the washed berries (if cherries, pitted) with the quark mixture and sprinkle breadcrumbs on top.
Savoury quark butter
125 g quark, 20 g butter, 1 onion, salt – to taste, a pinch of sugar, a pinch of paprika, 1 tbsp finely chopped chives, 1 tsp brandy.
Press the soft quark through a sieve and mix thoroughly with the butter. Mix with the grated onion, salt, a pinch of sugar and paprika, and add a teaspoon of brandy.
Boiled quark dumplings
100 g butter, 750 g quark, 3 eggs, a pinch of salt, 75 g breadcrumbs, 30 g butter, sugar and cinnamon – to taste.
Beat the butter until frothy. Mix the quark, eggs, salt and breadcrumbs with the beaten butter. With wet hands, roll the dough into balls no more than 6 cm in diameter. Drop them into boiling, lightly salted water. Once the dumplings rise to the surface, simmer for another 15 minutes over a low heat. Then drain them in a colander and transfer to a warmed dish. Pour lightly browned butter over the dumplings and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
Cold quark dumplings
500 g farmhouse quark, a pinch of salt, 2 tsp caraway seeds, 3 – 4 tbsp sweet cream, chives or paprika – to taste.
Add salt and caraway to the quark, mix with the cream and knead well; with wet hands roll into balls, flatten them slightly and sprinkle with paprika and/or chives.
Milk soup with dumplings
1 l milk, salt (to taste), 4 tbsp flour, water (as needed), sugar (to taste), 1 tbsp butter.
Bring the milk to the boil with the salt. Meanwhile, beat an egg with the flour and add water to the mixture very carefully, literally drop by drop, until small lumps form. Then pour the mixture into the boiling milk, stirring constantly. Cook for 5 – 10 minutes until done. Add salt, sweeten a little and add a knob of butter.
Allenstein quark patties
Press 250 g of not-too-fatty quark through a sieve and mix with 50 g butter, two eggs, two egg yolks, three tbsp flour, one tbsp cream, salt (to taste), 10 g caster sugar and a little finely grated lemon zest. Shape into patties, roll in flour and fry in vegetable oil. Serve with sour cream.
Memel-style potato dumplings with quark filling
(From the Andersen family cookbook)
1 kg raw potatoes, 4 boiled potatoes.
For the filling:
300 g quark, 1 egg, 1 tbsp sour cream, 20 g finely diced speck, 20 g butter, ½ tsp tarragon, salt – to taste.
Finely grate the raw potatoes and squeeze them out through a linen towel. Do not throw away the liquid. Once the starch has settled, pour off the water and add the starch to the potatoes. Mash the boiled potatoes and mix with the raw ones, add salt and knead into a dough. Shape the dough into small flat cakes. Prepare the filling: mix the quark with the fried pieces of speck, add the butter, sour cream, egg, tarragon and salt, and mix everything together. Place 1 tbsp of the quark filling on each cake, fold in half, pinch the edges together, drop the dumplings into boiling water and cook until done, stirring constantly. Lift the dumplings out with a slotted spoon, place on a warmed dish and pour over butter or sour cream.
Tilsit-style chard rolls with quark filling
(After a recipe by Rudolf Schmidt)
400 g quark, chard leaves, salt, ground nutmeg and ground black pepper – to taste, 100 g butter, 1 onion, 6 egg yolks, 1 tbsp chopped chervil, 500 g Parmesan, 1 tbsp wine vinegar.
Put the quark in a sieve and press out the excess water. Cut the stalks off the chard and blanch the leaves in salted water, rinse in cold water and pat dry. Cut the stalks into 1 cm pieces and stew them with the finely chopped onion until soft; season with salt and pepper.
Mix the quark with the egg yolks, season with salt and pepper and add the ground nutmeg mixed with the chervil. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees. Divide the chard leaves into 8 portions, put the filling on them and roll up. Arrange the rolls in a baking dish and drizzle with butter. Bake for 20 minutes at 150 degrees. Then sprinkle the rolls with wine vinegar and grated Parmesan. Bake for another 10 minutes.
To serve, pour over the juices released during baking. Boiled potatoes with parsley or pasta go well with this dish.
Tomatoes with quark
125 g quark, 3–4 tbsp sour cream, radishes, 1 tbsp each of parsley and chives, a pinch of salt, 1 onion, 4–6 tomatoes, paprika – to taste, a small head of lettuce.
Press the creamy quark through a sieve, whisk with the sour cream and mix with the grated radishes, chopped parsley and chives, a pinch of salt and grated onion. Hollow out the tomatoes, fill them with this mixture, sprinkle paprika on top and arrange on lettuce leaves. This dish goes perfectly with buttered wholemeal bread.
Boiled potatoes with creamy quark
5 eggs, 500 g quark, ¼ l sour cream, 4 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 onion, ground black pepper and salt – to taste, lemon juice, sugar, chives, 1 kg new potatoes.
Hard-boil the eggs. Press the quark through a sieve and mix with the sour cream, vegetable oil, grated onion, pepper and salt. Add lemon juice and a pinch of sugar. Then mix in the finely chopped eggs and sprinkle with chives.
This quark spread is delicious with floury boiled new potatoes. It is also ideal for sandwiches.
Sour cream with quark
500 g low-fat dry quark, a pinch of caraway, 3/8 l sour cream, salt (to taste).
Put the quark on a plate, add the caraway, salt to taste and pour over the sour cream. This dish is eaten with dark wholemeal bread.
Hardly anyone can say who first made quark, but it is known that the ancient Romans were already familiar with it. According to historians, milk in those days was curdled with rennet taken from the stomachs of calves, kids or lambs that had fed only on their mother's milk.
Among the Slavs, too, curd cheese was always one of the most esteemed foods. It was eaten almost every day. It was made from ordinary soured milk, which was placed in a warm stove for several hours and then poured into a cone-shaped linen bag to drain off the whey. The bag of curds was then put under a press. But curd cheese made this quickly did not keep long without refrigeration. So that it would not spoil, it was put back in the stove for several hours and then under the press again, and this was done twice. Then it was packed tightly into earthenware pots and covered with clarified butter. Kept in a cellar, such curd cheese could last for months.
Sources:
Doennigs Kochbuch.
Alte Familienrezepte aus Ostpreußen. Harald Saul.
Das Beste aus der ostpreußischen Küche. Susanne Rohner.
Rezepte aus der guten ostpreußischen Küche. M. Haslinger, R.M. Wagner.
Photo: Claus Ableiter (wikimedia.org)
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
