Cottage Cheesecake with Sour Cherry Topping

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!

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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).

5.0 from 2 reviews

Cottage Cheesecake with Sour Cherry Topping

 

Author:

Briana Thomas

Recipe type: THM S or S Helper (see note below) - Healthy Fats - Low Carb

Serves: 9

Print

 

This cottage cheesecake has a deliciously smooth, creamy texture and is much lower in calories and higher in protein than traditional cream cheese cheesecake! It keeps well, and the sour cherry topping is the perfect tart sweet accoutrement. (See the note below regarding the carbs from the cherries and a possible substitution.) THM S (or S Helper), low carb, sugar free, gluten/nut free

Ingredients

CRUST

• 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

CHEESECAKE

• 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

SOUR CHERRY TOPPING

• 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)

Instructions

1. Mix the crust ingredients together. Press into a greased 8”x8” pan and bake at 350* for 8 minutes.
2. Meanwhile blend the cheesecake ingredients together until completely smooth. (No need to activate the gelatin first. I use an immersion blender.)
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

Notes

-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 they’re technically a fruit and therefore an E fuel. The net carbs (minus fiber and sugar alcohols) for the whole dessert (slice of cheesecake + ⅓ 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 ⅓ cup of cherry topping, or 3) use red raspberries in place of the sour cherries for the same color and tartness but fewer carbs.
-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.

3.5.3251

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