Traditionally eaten to celebrate the end of Lent, paskha is a richly flavoured cheese served with bread

It's taken me a long time to make a paskha. My yearning started way back and came from one of my children's favourite bedtime stories: a charming Easter fairy-tale about a Russian grandmother, Babushka, who loved painting her prize-winning eggs. We never tired of Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco. My children loved the vividly painted images, especially the Easter eggs, but for me, it was the story peppered with references to Russian food, especially the kulich, a sweet Easter bread, which she covered with paskha, a spread of cheese butter and raisins.

Paskha is often described as a cheesecake, but that's a misnomer by Western standards. It's far from our understanding of a traditional cheesecake. This is a mixture of soft cheese enriched with a combination of cream, eggs, butter, glacé fruit and almonds, moulded into a shape.

Made at Easter in Russia to celebrate the end of Lent, the paskha is shaped in a wooden perforated mould, a pasochnitsa , lined with muslin. This allows it to drain, makes it thicker and gives it a better keeping quality.

Shaped like a pyramid, it's a tall confection with the top cut off to represent the tomb of Jesus. It comes marked with an Orthodox cross left as an imprint on the surface from the mould. Religiously significant, some pashkas are even taken to church to be blessed before they are eaten on Easter Sunday.

Making a pashka is a simple process, but a lengthy one. I used the best quality ricotta cheese, from a small, independent dairy, Lucania. Draining it overnight, I hung it in a clean, Irish linen dish-cloth (you can use muslin) and placed the package over a colander, which was well weighted down to drain off any excess moisture in the cheese.

Recipes for paskha abound. The more traditional ones use egg yolks that are lightly "cooked" in some heated cream (for those who have a paranoia of using raw egg in a mixture). Finding a pasochnitsa will be difficult, so I used an unglazed terracotta flower pot with a hole in the bottom. In hindsight, you could line the pot with some muslin or even a new Superwipe cloth, which will prevent it sticking, as I found it difficult to release the mixture later.

To serve, slide your knife through to make horizontal slices rather than vertical slices, saving the top slice, and decorating and replacing it as you make your way down the paskha.

And yes, grandmother Babushka is quite right - the paskha is not meant to be savoured on its own, but better enjoyed spread on some bread. I'm not sure you are going to find a Russian kulich but a generous smear on a slice of toasted panettone or even hot cross bun certainly does the trick.

Recipe: Pashka

Ingredients:

• 800g ricotta cheese
• 100g butter, softened
• 125ml sugar
• 2 extra-large egg yolks
• 125ml cream
• 65g glacé fruit, chopped
• 65g blanched almonds, finely chopped
• 5ml vanilla extract (or scrape the seeds from a vanilla pod)
• Extra glacé fruit for decorating

Method

Place the cheese in a muslin or linen cloth with a weight on top of it and allow to drain overnight.

In a bowl, combine the broken-up cheese with the butter using a wooden spoon.

Beat the sugar and egg yolks together till light and creamy. In a pot, preheat the cream and let it just come to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the eggs and sugar and return to a low heat, stirring constantly and allowing it to thicken. Don't hurry as it can quickly turn into scrambled eggs.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely - it's best to remove from the pot and place in a metal dish in the fridge, adding the glacé fruit.

When completely cold, add the cheese and almonds, pack the mixture into the mould and cover with a cloth. Place weighted down in the refrigerator overnight over a dish to catch any liquid that may drain away.

Unmould, decorate with glacé fruit and serve.