birthday plan for wife should include one of these: Rustic Desserts from the Czech Republic from dumplings to cheesy cakes

Czech Republic’s dessert fare is quite interesting when compared to its neighbours because it uses a lot of local fruits in its desserts, a sour cheese known as quark or tvaroh and also a variety of thin and crispy wafers with delicious fillings inside. A great and refreshing surprise in the birthday plan for wife. Of course there's the usual fare of sweet breads, cookies, bread puddings but let’s have a look at the unique kinds like their sweet dumplings with poppy seeds fruits and potato in them. The Czechs are very particular about measurements and you'll find some cakes and wafers being a particular size made the same way since their inception by some home cook or a skilled baker.

1. Míša řezy

Quark cheese forms the base of this dessert and Míša řezy is perhaps the Czech Republic’s version of the cheesecake. This dessert has three layers with a base of chocolate sponge cake followed by the quark cheese made smoother with sugar and butter and with chocolate icing on top. It takes after the locally popular Míša ice cream which is just plain quark cheese covered in chocolate and since Míša řezy is cut into squares and served it tends to look like the ice cream and the name of the dessert also means Mickey squares.

2. Karlovarské oplatky

Imagine a whole museum dedicated to wafers because that is exactly what Karlovarské oplatky are – wafers. These wafers are flat and use an old recipe from the mid-1800s when they used to be homebaked. You can find the oldest wafer-making irons displayed at the Karlovy Vary Museum in the country. As history goes, these wafers would be prepared for guests of the Karlovy Vary spaz sprinkled with sugar, which would be made exactly 19 cm. It would have the crest of the spa town in the centre or a water fountain and use the water of the thermal springs. These days the wafers tend to use toppings like nuts like hazelnut, almonds, cocoa, vanilla or cinnamon sugar. Hop over to the Mariánské Lázně region and you'll find huge wafers with two of them sandwiched together with cocoa or hazelnuts called Mariánskolázeňské oplatky. There's one more sandwich wafer from the Karlovy Vary area that is similar to the Mariánské Lázně region one and is called Karlovarské trojhránky.

3. Bublanina

A simple sponge cake that is known for its lightness, it incorporates sliced fruits into the batter (cherries, plums, pears, strawberries, blueberries, apricots) being the most popular choice. Lemon zest and vanilla essence goes into the batter too to complement the fruits. It's a rustic cake and is one of the most underrated but a popular dessert that often misses the radar of dessert lovers. It's baked as an everyday dessert and can be found across bakeries in the country.

4. Knedlíky

These are a kind of sweet dumplings that are filled with a whole fruit or half and no, it's nothing like the Eastern dumplings. These Czech fruit dumplings use potato dough or an airy wheat dough with or without quark cheese sometimes used in it. The fruits vary but plums, strawberries, apricots, and blueberries, are common choices. The dumplings are made and cooked in bubbling water and served hot. The steaming dumplings are often brushed with melted butter and with a sprinkling of sugar, poppy seeds and crumbled quark cheese.

5. Valašský frgál

This dessert looks like a pizza that has crumbly toppings but is anything but savoury and is around 200 years old. It also enjoys a G.I tag and when it comes to its shape and size, it's quite specific. It's roughly 30 cm in diameter and is baked golden with toppings of poppy seeds, walnuts, dried pears, jam, fruits, curd cheese, kohlrabi, cabbage, or carrots. it's a sweet cake and the toppings, which are never combined, come from the south-eastern Moravian Wallachia region of the Czech Republic.

6. Krupicová kaše

This one's a semolina pudding as popular as the Rýžový nákyp, the rice pudding. The semolina is cooked in milk with added sugar and is eaten plain, like sooji halwa. Modern iterations have cinnamon, raisins, fresh fruits, ground walnuts, and even rum. It can be topped with butter or cocoa powder and it's the perfect breakfast dish, a snack to fuel you through the day or a light supper.

7. Žemlovka

This is a baked dessert that is co-parented by Slovakia that is simply sliced bread or bread rolls, soaked in vanilla-flavoured milk with fruits on it. The bread forms a kind of soggy sandwich with different fruits as filling which are covered with cinnamon (especially apples) and often use dried fruits too like raisins and quark cheese. This is baked and once done a meringue is added to this baked goodie. Like most bread puddings it's best eaten warm, but it tastes as good when eaten cold.