Russian Easter Cheesecake

Here are recipes for three different kinds of paskha—evidence of my own weakness for this rich cheesecake. Paskha may be cooked or uncooked. The cooked version requires more effort, but it stays fresh longer, which was an important consideration in the days before refrigeration. My own favorite is the unboiled paskha in the first recipe, lighter than the others since whipped sweet cream is used in place of sour cream. The recipe was given to me by Maria Nikolaevna, a Russian émigré of the first wave who still loves to cook in the traditional style. The other two recipes have been adapted from Elena Molokhovets’s renowned nineteenth-century cookbook.