Alternative To Curd Cheese For Old Fashioned Cheesecake

Our answer

Nigella's Old-Fashioned Cheesecake (from KITCHEN) is a baked cheesecake that is made with curd cheese. Curd cheese is a medium fat soft, fresh cheese. It has become a little more difficult to find in recent years but in the UK look for Polish Twaróg, which you should be able to find easily in a Polish food shop or in supermarkets where there is a Polish community. Avoid using quark, as this also very low fat.

If you can't find curd cheese then in the US farmer cheese is a good alternative or you could use Neufchatel cheese (which is different to European Neufchatel cheese). It may be possible to use a combination of full-fat (whole milk) cottage cheese and cream cheese or just a full-fat (whole milk) ricotta, but these will be more grainy than curd cheese so you would need to blitz them in a liquidizer, food processor or with a hand blender to make them smoother. Regular cream cheese, which is available in most countries, could also be used for the cheesecake if there is no other option available. However, please note that we have not tried the cheesecake with these alternatives.