This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.
I teased y’all with a picture of this delicious cottage cheesecake with sour cherry topping a few weeks ago and told you I’d be posting it “soon,” but my soons these days aren’t as soon as they used to be. 😛 Sorry ’bout that. Convenient Food releases next week and I just got back from a week of vacation with Ryan (actually I’m still in the airport, finishing up this blog post on a layover in Washington, DC), so now my schedule looks a little freer for the next month and I’m hoping to post the backlog of a dozen recipes that have been piling up over the last month or two. And create some new ones. 😉 Warning: I’m on a soup kick these days – and being in Canada and experiencing some REAL cold weather while visiting Ryan’s family only intensified my cravings for piping hot bowls of comfort food! I tell you what – I married into the right family. They love music and singing and they treated us to a family get-together where everyone brought homemade authentic Indian curries. My year was made.
This cottage cheesecake is sooo creamy and full of protein, but thanks to using cottage cheese instead of cream cheese as one would use in a traditional cheesecake, it’s much lower in calories! I paired it with a sour cherry topping because cheesecake and sour cherries are a classic combination that I remember from my childhood – only then it was a no-bake cheesecake with sugary cherry pie filling that one of the ladies from church brought to potlucks. This version is baked but actually has a similar texture to a no-bake cheesecake. It’s perfect, and it keeps well in the fridge.
A note on fuel type:
The net carbs from the sour cherries come to a little over 5 grams per serving, which fits into the 10 grams of net carbs for a THM S meal but does blur the lines a bit since cherries are technically a fruit and therefore an E fuel. The net carbs (minus fiber and sugar alcohols) for the whole dessert (slice of cheesecake + 1/3 cup of cherry topping) comes to 10.89 grams of net carbs, which is just over the line of acceptable if you’re counting everything and not just the added carb source in your calculations. You have a couple of options: 1) Just enjoy it as an S + an extra carb, 2) use a little less than 1/3 cup of cherry topping on your serving, or 3) use red raspberries in place of the sour cherries for the same color and tartness but fewer carbs.
Some notes about the ingredients I used:
- I prefer LifeSource brand oat fiber from Netrition.com. Trim Healthy Mama carries a gluten-free version. Use an oat fiber that is light in color and taste; they’re not all created equally! Oat fiber is a really fine, dry flour with no net carbs or fats, and I don’t know of a good substitute for it for this recipe. Some people use psyllium husk flakes to replace it, but I’m not sure if that substitute would work in this recipe or not. The cottage cheese and sour cream produce a lot of liquid (more so than the cream cheese in a traditional cheesecake), so the oat fiber helps soak the extra liquid up and I don’t recommend omitting it (I’ve tried).
- The gelatin also helps counteract the extra liquid in this cottage cheesecake. I used Knox gelatin because it dissolves well and I can get it cheaply, but if using a beef gelatin such as Great Lakes or Trim Healthy Mama brands, add an extra ½ teaspoon gelatin.
- If you don’t have tart cherries canned in water or would just like to reduce the carbs in this recipe, I recommend using red raspberries in place of the cherries and just using water in place of the cup of cherry water from the can of cherries. Adjust sweetness and thickener if needed. If using fresh cherries instead of canned cherries, just cook the topping down until the cherries are soft and mash them a bit to flavor the juice if needed.
- I used low-fat cottage cheese and sour cream in this recipe to cut down on needless calories for a lighter dessert, but since this is a THM S recipe you can feel free to use full-fat dairy products for a creamier, richer result.
On a note mostly unrelated to this yummy cheesecake, Convenient Food, my new cookbook, releases next Wednesday (October 31st)! Pre-orders will start shipping out on Monday, October 29th, and the special $19.99 pre-order price will no longer be available on November 1st. CLICK HERE to order now and get your copy before the price goes up! The video below is a very long monologue of me talking about what you will find in the book, the kinds of recipes it contains and how it’s laid out, and some of my favorite features!
So many of you left thoughtful, kind comments on all of the giveaways I was running on social media last week. Thank you so much for your interest in this project that has become very near and dear to my heart. Since getting married and trying to find a new, more balanced schedule and not having time to blog regularly due to working so hard on the cookbook, I was a little worried about how this one would go over, but I was very touched to realize that there are a core group of you who are not only still interested in my recipes but also interested in me and my personal growth. That means SO MUCH. I’m actually sitting in the airport right now on my way home from seeing Ryan’s family in Ontario (taking a vacation the week before my book releases was probably not the greatest idea, but since Ryan’s vacations are scheduled months in advance we didn’t really have a choice and God worked it all out, as usual!), and I’m full of a warm glow of memories and refreshment from the trip but also really, really excited about getting back home – back to work and back to a schedule. The book officially goes out the door this week, I have 3 more recipe blog posts partially done already that I can’t wait to share with you, and I anticipate that things will slow down enough that I can finally crawl out of this hole of “being behind” that I’ve been in for the last 8 months. And THAT means that I can get back to normal life, doing what I love to do, which is now puttering around cleaning my house, making healthy meals for my husband and taking pictures of them to share with you, writing blog posts for fun, and connecting with the people in my life. And reading doctor stories in the evenings instead of proofreading a book!
PS – My Canadian distributors have opened a pre-order on their website, so CLICK HERE to make use of that if you live in the great frigid north!
You may also enjoy:
As always, check out the Notes section of the recipe for extra info. Check out the links in and below the recipe to see the products I use and recommend. Some of the links included in the recipe and blog post are affiliate links, which means that if you make purchases through these links, I make a small commission (but your price doesn’t change).

- ¼ cup Briana’s Baking Mix
- ¼ cup oat fiber (gluten free if necessary)
- 2 tablespoons salted butter (melted)
- 2 tablespoons water
- ½ teaspoon THM Super Sweet Blend
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 (24 oz.) container low-fat cottage cheese (about 3 cups)
- 1 cup low-fat sour cream
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons oat fiber (gluten free if necessary)
- 1½ tablespoons THM Super Sweet Blend (or more, to taste)
- 2 teaspoons Knox gelatin
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup cherry “juice” from can + water (if you don’t have a full cup of cherry water from the can)
- 2 teaspoons THM Super Sweet Blend (or more, to taste)
- ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups tart cherries (mine were canned in water)
- Mix the crust ingredients together. Press into a greased 8”x8” pan and bake at 350* for 8 minutes.
- Meanwhile blend the cheesecake ingredients together until completely smooth. (No need to activate the gelatin first. I use an immersion blender.)
- Pour the cheesecake mixture over the hot crust when it comes out of the oven and return the cheesecake to the oven at 350* for 40 minutes. The cheesecake will still be very jiggly but will get a little darker around the edges (not brown). Remove it from the oven and let it cool completely, then refrigerate to chill completely before cutting and serving. The cheesecake will set up in the refrigerator.
- To make the sour cherry topping, whisk the first four ingredients together in a small saucepan, adding the xanthan gum slowly while whisking so it doesn’t clump. (See note below about what to do if you don’t have tart cherries canned in water.) Add the cherries after whisking so they don’t fall apart. Bring the sauce to a boil, stirring occasionally, then let cool and refrigerate to thicken.
- When both the cheesecake and cherry topping are cold, serve them together. I recommend keeping the cheesecake and topping separate until serving, not spreading the cherry topping onto the cheesecake and storing it in the refrigerator like that.
-If you don’t have tart cherries canned in water or would just like to reduce the carbs in this recipe, I recommend using red raspberries in place of the cherries and just using water in place of the cup of cherry water from the can of cherries. Adjust sweetness and thickener if needed. If using fresh cherries instead of canned cherries, just cook the topping down until the cherries are soft and mash them a bit to flavor the juice if needed.
-You can probably use THM Baking Blend in place of my baking mix in the same amount since it's such a small amount. (THM Baking Blend is not nut free.)
-I prefer LifeSource brand oat fiber from Netrition.com. Trim Healthy Mama carries a gluten-free version. Use an oat fiber that is light in color and taste; they’re not all created equally! Oat fiber is a really fine, dry flour with no net carbs or fats, and I don’t know of a good substitute for it for this recipe. Some people use psyllium husk flakes to replace it, but I’m not sure if that substitute would work in this recipe or not. The cottage cheese and sour cream produce a lot of liquid (more so than the cream cheese in a traditional cheesecake), so the oat fiber helps soak the extra liquid up and I don’t recommend omitting it (I’ve tried).
-The gelatin also helps counteract the extra liquid in this cottage cheesecake. If using a beef gelatin such as Great Lakes or Trim Healthy Mama brands, add an extra ½ teaspoon gelatin.
-I used low-fat cottage cheese and sour cream in this recipe to cut down on needless calories for a lighter dessert, but since this is a THM S recipe you can feel free to use full-fat dairy products for a creamier, richer result.
You can pin this recipe here:
This looks really good. If you substitute the eggs for egg whites, would it make this more like a fuel pull?
Yes, but I’m not sure what the texture would be like and you’d still have to run the numbers to see what the fat content would be between the butter/baking mix/trace fats in the cottage cheese and sour cream. 🙂 You may still be in S territory.
I love this recipe! I’ve made it 2 weekends in a row now! I skipped the crust, because I didn’t have time to make it, and I also didn’t have sour cherries. I was going to make a blueberry topping, but never got around to it. I ate it plain and it was great!! This weekend I have fresh blueberries and will eat it with that. Thank you for your recipes, Briana!
Can collagen be used instead of gelatin? This recipe looks really good!
No, collagen does not have the gelling properties that gelatin does. 🙂 The gelatin helps it set up to a firm texture.
Hi! I thought I would leave a comment in case anyone else wanted to know if this sub worked. Instead of using the cup of sour cream I used 1 cup non fat Greek yogurt and it turned out great! Thanks Briana!
Good to know! Thank you, Shannan!
Good morning, Briana! I received Convenient Foods in the mail yesterday! I have today off work, so am spending part of this morning reading through it. I have your first cookbook also and love the spiral binding, hardcover and all your thoughtfulness with the layouts, and indexes. I follow Weight Watchers and find your recipes very easy to work with my needs for that plan. Today, i will also make the above recipe. However i am going to try it without the crust, in a springform pan. I have oat fiber, but have fat free cottage cheese in the frig so will use that instead. I am not sure yet what i will use for the topping, but i do have a can of sugar free cherry pie filling, so may use that. Thank you for all your hard work and inspiration.
Hi Jennifer! I’m so glad you enjoy the cookbooks and can make use of the recipes! I hope the cheesecake works out well for you!
Do you happen to know: how does this do as a stand-alone (plain) cheesecake, or a base for other cheesecakes like salted caramel?
Hi Elizabeth! I’m not quite sure that I understand your question. In this post I’ve given a recipe for a cheesecake and a cherry topping, and the cheesecake does stand alone (you just add the topping for something extra when you’re ready to eat it). Feel free to just enjoy it without the cherry topping or experiment with toppings of your own. 🙂 I have some ideas for flavors I’d like to make in the future too!
Hi Briana. I love your recipes! This one sounds sooo good. My daughter has a few allergies though- do you have a recommendation for the baking mix without nuts or coconut (she’s allergic to both!)? I’m in desperate need of a substitution!
Hi Paige! First, you could always try just making this cheesecake crustless. 🙂 It may be a little wetter since extra liquid can’t soak into the crust, but as long as you use the oat fiber that is called for in the cheesecake part itself you’d probably be fine.
I’m afraid I don’t know of any baking mixes that contain neither coconut flour nor nut flours. My baking mix is nut free but does contain coconut. If I were you I would just make my own blend of the flours your daughter can have, then do some experimenting in recipes to see how your mix compares in dryness to THM Baking Blend and other mixes out there. 🙂
Could I use THM Baking Blend instead of your baking mix, and if so, how much would I use? Trying to cut down on steps.
Yes, that should work. 🙂 I would just try the same amount since it’s such a small amount. My mix is a little drier than THM’s so general rule of thumb is about 3/4 cup of my mix for every cup of THM’s, but in small amounts like this it shouldn’t matter too much.
Is this in the new book, Briana??? Looks SOOO good!
No, Convenient Food contains recipes published to the blog between August 2016 and May 2018, so any new recipes will not be in CF. 🙂
So excited for you and looking forward to your new book!