University of Helsinki
In 1916 Gösta Grotenfelt, Professor of Agriculture and an avid recorder of Finnish agricultural history, wrote down the recipe for traditional Finnish egg cheese:
Strain 10 litres of fresh warm cow’s milk into a clean iron pot. Do not use a copper pot even if tin-plated. As the milk approaches the boiling point, add soured cream (from milk acidified for 24 hours) mixed with eight eggs. Stir vigorously with a whisk. As soon as the milk begins to boil, remove the pot from the heat and let the milk curdle until the whey is clear and the “edge of the cheese mass is woolly”. Then lift the cheese with a wooden spoon into a mould lined with a cheesecloth. Now add three tablespoons of sugar and a scant tablespoon of salt, cover the cheese with a cheesecloth and place a lid on the mould. Leave the cheese in the mould to solidify for one hour in the summer and 12 hours in the winter. This is important for the cheese to firm sufficiently. Once the cheese has cooled and been removed from the mould, remove the cloth and place the cheese on an alder board; wood from other trees may easily affect the taste.
Grotenfelt notes that this recipe was used in the parishes of Bromarv and Finby. He included in his museum collection a wooden cheese mould from Bromarv (the current Raasepori area). The mould is from 1861, meaning it is now over 160 years old.
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