Cottage cheese in cheesecakes

[hansjoakim]

Hi all,

I have quite some leftover cottage cheese in the fridge that I would like to use in a cheesecake. I've browsed through Friberg's cheesecake recipes in the Professional Pastry Chef, but most of them call for ordinary cream cheese. Can I simply replace cottage cheese for cream cheese and leave the rest of the recipe as is, or should I also adjust other ingredients, like sour cream, eggs or milk?

Thanks in advance

[pastrygirl]

If you can find a recipe for ricotta cheesecake or ricotta pie, that might be closer. Either way, I think you would want to puree your cottage cheese first to get it as smooth as possible. I think it would be a little looser than cream cheese, so you might want to reduce the other liquid or maybe drain the cheese a little to get it the same thickness as cream cheese.

[baroness]

I agree with pastrygirl. Cottage cheese is moister and less tangy than cream cheese.

Another recipe search term would be "Italian" cheesecake, which is typically made with ricotta cheese.

[rickster]

I agree, its a better substitute for ricotta in an Italian cheesecake, but I would be careful about salt since I think there is more salt in cottage cheese than ricotta

[violetfox]

Hi all,

I have quite some leftover cottage cheese in the fridge that I would like to use in a cheesecake. I've browsed through Friberg's cheesecake recipes in the Professional Pastry Chef, but most of them call for ordinary cream cheese. Can I simply replace cottage cheese for cream cheese and leave the rest of the recipe as is, or should I also adjust other ingredients, like sour cream, eggs or milk?

Thanks in advance 

←

My mom has a great recipe from her mom (German) using cottage cheese.

I'm renting a house and don't have the recipe here - gah! - but you put the cottage cheese through a sieve and then proceed with the cheesecake. I'll see if I can find something similar online...you might try putting the cottage cheese through a sieve and proceeding with an Italian ricotta cake recipe. I don't know if it will be dry enough, though.

She calls it cheese pie - these are similar:

cheese pie recipes

Edited April 4, 2009 by violetfox (log)

[hansjoakim]

Thanks so much for all the replies, everyone

What should I've done without you...

Great idea re: Italian cheesecake - I guess cottage cheese should behave similarly to ricotta cheese. I found a ricotta cheesecake recipe at joyofbaking (link) that looked quite solid. Draining ricotta/cottage cheese seems to be a great idea too, violetfox. By the way, doesn't ordinary German cheesecakes use something called quark in them? I don't think I've ever tasted quark... Is it any good?

[qrn]

use it in place of the sour cream

Bud

[violetfox]

Thanks so much for all the replies, everyone 

What should I've done without you...

Great idea re: Italian cheesecake - I guess cottage cheese should behave similarly to ricotta cheese. I found a ricotta cheesecake recipe at joyofbaking (link) that looked quite solid. Draining ricotta/cottage cheese seems to be a great idea too, violetfox. By the way, doesn't ordinary German cheesecakes use something called quark in them? I don't think I've ever tasted quark... Is it any good?

←

Quark wasn't part of Mom's recipe, and I haven't had it. Hers has a standard graham cracker-butter-sugar crust (not prebaked) and the custard is the drained cottage cheese, suagr, lemon zest, eggs, vanilla and not much else as I recall. It's much lighter than a cream cheesecake, very similar in flavor to a ricotta cheesecake.

[Dave Hatfield]

I agree that cottage cheese should work well, but might be a bit 'sloppy'

Try adding some gelatin to the mix and then resting the cheesecake in the fridge to set. This, of course, is if you're doing an uncooked cheesecake which is what I would recommend.