Cottage cheese crème brûlée
50 min · 19 g protein · 182 cals / serving
The bistro dessert, rebuilt on cottage cheese: blended for a full two minutes and sieved until it pours like cream, set with eggs and extra yolks in a low water bath into a cool, silky vanilla custard, then finished the classic way with a thin layer of sugar torched to glassy amber that cracks under the spoon. A little denser than a cream custard, with a faint fresh-cheese tang, and served with raspberries to cut the caramel.
Ingredients
- 2 cups cottage cheese (1%), 1 % milkfat
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 tsp + 1 pinch stevia, pure stevia powder, or sweetener equal to 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract, or the seeds of half a vanilla pod
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp granulated sugar, caster (superfine) if you have it; 1 tsp per ramekin, for the top
- 1 cup raspberries, to serve
Steps
- Heat the oven to 300°F and put the kettle on. Set 4 shallow ramekins (about 6 oz each) in a deep roasting tin lined with a folded tea towel, which stops the bottoms from overcooking.
- Blend the cottage cheese on its own for a full 2 minutes, scraping down once, until it is completely smooth and pours like thick cream, with no grain left at all; this is what makes the custard silky. Add the eggs, yolks, stevia, vanilla and salt and blend on low for about 10 seconds, just until even; more blending whips in bubbles.
- Pour the custard through a fine sieve into a jug, pushing it through with a spoon, and skim off any foam. Divide it between the ramekins, set the tin on the oven shelf and pour in hot water from the kettle to come halfway up their sides.
- Bake 30–35 minutes, until the edges are set and the centre wobbles like set jelly when you nudge the tin, not like liquid. The eggs keep setting as it cools, so take them out at the wobble. Lift the ramekins out of the water, cool 30 minutes, then chill until cold, covering them once they are: at least 3 hours, up to 2 days.
- Just before serving, blot any beads of moisture off each top with kitchen paper, or the sugar dissolves instead of turning to glass. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of sugar over each in a thin, even layer, tilting the ramekin to spread it to the edges. Torch it, holding the flame about 2 inch away and moving in small circles, until the sugar melts, bubbles and turns deep amber. No torch: stand the ramekins in a tray of iced water and slide them as close as they go under a grill (broiler) on its highest setting for 2–4 minutes, watching the whole time.
- Leave the caramel 2 minutes to harden, then serve with the raspberries alongside. Crack it within half an hour; after an hour the crust starts to melt back into syrup.
Good to know
Does it really taste like crème brûlée?
The parts you remember are all there: the cold vanilla custard and the burnt-sugar crust that shatters. The custard is a little denser and has a faint tang, somewhere between a classic brûlée and a baked vanilla cheesecake. Blending a full 2 minutes and sieving is what keeps it silky rather than grainy, so do not skip either.
Mine came out grainy or weeping.
It was overbaked, or the oven ran hot. Pull the ramekins while the centre still wobbles, keep the water bath at halfway up the sides, and check after 28 minutes the next time; ovens vary.
Can I make them ahead?
Bake and chill the custards up to 2 days ahead, covered. Only the sugar has to wait: torch it right before serving, because the crust softens within the hour.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 106
- Protein
- (44%)
- 11 g
- Fat
- (32%)
- 4 g
- Carbohydrates
- (24%)
- 7 g
- of which sugar
- 5 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 314 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. General guidance, not medical advice. Talk to your prescriber. How
As written, 728 kcal goes into the pot and 726 g of ingredients comes out as about 690 g of food: 106 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.