I bought some cottage cheese before going on vacation, used a bit, and came back to an almost-full tub with not a lot of life left in it. This was the result! It's a vintage baked cottage cheese cheesecake with an easy graham cracker crust.
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The recipe comes from a little booklet put out by Fairmont Foods. The original vintage cottage cheese cheesecake recipe was lemon, but I modified it a bit to make it more vanilla. Also, the recipe is supposed to be baked in an 8-inch graham cracker crust. Something like a store-bought Keebler crust probably would have been ideal, but I had good results with a homemade graham cracker crust pressed into an 8-inch round springform.
With the 8-inch springform it's a very thin cheesecake, but it's still rich and looks pretty plated. I think a 7-inch springform might work even better and would definitely not try this in a 9-inch. If you don't have a springform, a pie plate or a square pan no larger than 8-inches should work.
Baked Cottage Cheese Cheesecake Notes
I processed the cottage cheese until it was fairly smooth before adding the other ingredients. There's one egg for binding, and butter and whole milk keep the cheesecake rich. I added lemon juice, mixed the flour with the sugar to help disperse it evenly, and added the zest and vanilla last. I definitely plan on making this again, and will test it out in a store bought graham cracker crust just for fun.
Recipe
Vintage Cottage Cheese Cheesecake
Ingredients
Graham Cracker Crust
- 4 tablespoons butter, unsalted, extremely soft (almost melted) (56 grams)
- 2 tablespoons sugar (25 grams)
- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs, slightly heaping
- 1 pinch salt (omit if using salted butter)
Filling
- 12 oz cottage cheese (I use Friendly Farm 4%) (335 grams)
- 1 large egg
- 3 tablespoons butter, salted, melted and cooled** (42 grams)
- ⅓ cup milk (75 grams
- 2 T. lemon juice (28 grams)
- ½ cup sugar (100 grams)
- 2 ½ tablespoons flour (20 grams)
- ½ tablespoon lemon zest
- ½ tablespoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8-inch springform pan. If you don't have that size pan, you could try using a 7 or 8-inch square pan.
- Combine softened butter, sugar, and a heaping half cup of graham cracker crumbs and press into bottom of the springform pan.
- In a blender or a food processor, process the cottage cheese until creamy. Add the egg and process for another 30 seconds, then add the melted butter, milk, and lemon juice.
- Stir together the sugar and flour and add to the mixture. Pulse to blend, then add the lemon zest and vanilla extract.
- Pour this mixture over the graham crust.
- Set the cheesecake on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any leaking butter. Bake for 40 minutes. If using the springform pan, loosen the sides of the cake from the sides of the pan with knife but do not remove sides. Let cool at room temperature for about 40 minutes. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill for at least 5 hours (overnight is better). Remove side and serve.
sue czapski says
My grandma used to make this all the time. Here I thought it was a special polish recipe!!
lol
Ty for sharing.
Anna says
Violet, thank you for asking me that! I'll be sure to give a more solid like/dislike in future posts. I personally did like it! I also loved that the bake time was pretty straightforward -- 40 minutes, no water bath, no sitting in the off-oven. Just easy. It tasted only slightly lemony and more like traditional cheesecake (not too tart) and the texture was relatively smooth given it was pureed cottage cheese. It's not as smooth textured as regular cream cheese cheesecake, but it was pretty smooth. It also has enough richness to where you can serve a small portion, round it out with fruit and be satisfied. If given the choice between a slice of this or a slice of regular New York Style or my Fluffy Cheesecake, I'd probably go with a cream cheese based one, but this was tasty for a cottage cheese dessert. Would I go out and buy all the ingredients and make it for company? No, probably not. But I'd make it for myself or the family if I had cottage cheese on hand and was looking for an easy weeknight dessert.
Violet says
So, did you like it? What does it taste like? You always have such thoughtful posts, but I am always left wondering if you like the result and what exactly it tastes like.