Cottage Cheese Cake with Raisins and Orange Zest
A homemade cottage cheese cake is a fairly easy bake. As a rule, it's made from a so-called “butter” sponge batter with cottage cheese added, which gives the cake its name. It's usually made without yeast, although there are plenty of versions that use baker's or brewer's yeast.
Cakes like this have ancient roots. Long ago, nuts, dried fruit and berries went into the batter. Given that sugar appeared relatively recently, the sweetness came from fruit and honey. Often the ingredients depend heavily on local traditions and what's available: citrus zest, raisins (the most common add-in), almonds, and nuts like walnuts, cashews or hazelnuts.
When I was little, these cakes looked like a rectangular loaf of bread. That's how my mom and grandmother baked them. When my daughter and I bake them, we use a round tube pan that leaves a big hole in the middle. You can see cakes shaped like that in old cookbooks. We usually dust ours with powdered sugar. But if you like, you can make a glaze or fondant icing, like for a rum baba.
If the batter is yeast-free, you need a leavening agent. Otherwise the cottage cheese cake will come out dense and sunken. People often make do with plain baking soda, but it's very hard to get the soda and acid right, so the baked goods end up with an aftertaste. It's better to use store-bought baking powder: all its components are precisely measured, and the result is guaranteed.
If you can, buy homemade farmers' market cottage cheese. If it's crumbly and large-curd, to my taste that's ideal: the cake will be studded with bits of cheese. Smooth store-bought cottage cheese practically disappears in baking.
The base of this cake is a sponge batter, made from flour, sugar and eggs. For cakes like this, butter, baking powder and flavorings such as vanilla, zest or liqueur go in too. Usually only raisins are added to the batter before baking, as in the popular “Stolichny” raisin cake. But nobody's stopping you from using candied peel, dried fruit or berries. The cake stays fresh for several days, though it's best eaten right away, while still a little warm.
Ingredients
4-6 servings
- Homemade cottage cheese 350 g
- Flour 250 g
- Butter 120 g
- Sugar 250 g
- Eggs 3
- Raisins (seedless) 100 g
- Baking powder, vanilla extract, vegetable oil (for greasing), liqueur, zest, powdered sugar to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- For a soft cottage cheese cake, you need butter in the batter. Take it out of the fridge ahead of time to soften at room temperature. A sponge batter is easiest to mix with a mixer for a smooth result. Put the sugar and softened butter in the mixer bowl and crack in the eggs. Ahead of time, soak the raisins in hot water with 2-3 tbsp orange liqueur.
- Mix all the ingredients on low speed. The mixture should be smooth and the sugar dissolved. Add the cottage cheese; you don't have to break it up, you can leave fairly large pieces, which is how I like this cake best. If the cottage cheese is wet and a bit runny, squeeze it out lightly. Grate in 1-2 tsp orange zest and add liquid vanilla extract to taste. Mix the cottage cheese, zest and egg mixture.
- Sift the wheat flour into a bowl and mix it with the required amount of baking powder; the package says how much flour it's meant for. Add the flour to the mixer bowl and mix the batter very thoroughly. Drain the raisins, add a scant 1 tbsp flour and toss. Add the raisins to the batter and fold them in gently with a spoon or spatula.
- We bake it in a round metal tube pan that makes a hole right through the middle of the cake. The cottage cheese cake comes out looking like a torte. Generously grease the whole inside of the pan with vegetable oil. Put all the cottage cheese batter into the pan, press it down lightly and smooth it with a spatula.
- Preheat the oven to 180-190°C. Put the pan in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes. As a rule, that's enough time. Keep in mind that it takes a while to heat through the whole mass, more than a kilogram of batter. So quite often the baking time can stretch to an hour. It's easy to tell when the cottage cheese cake is done by how firm it is and with a toothpick: baked batter leaves no traces on the wood.
- As soon as the cottage cheese cake is baked, take the pan out of the oven and let it cool a little. Turn the pan over so the cake drops out onto a plate or board. The top browns during baking but doesn't burn. Dust the cake generously with powdered sugar.
- Serve the cottage cheese cake slightly warm, without letting it cool completely. Fresh baking is the tastiest. Cut the cake with a very sharp knife so it doesn't get squashed.
| Serves: | 4-6 servings |
| Calories: | 350 |
| Prep: | 15 mins |
| Cook: | 45 mins |
| Total: | 1 h |
| Category: | Baking |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.9
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