Here’s a hot take for all the dessert heads out there: Carrot cake is a fantastic sweet treat. Before you furiously shake your head in sugary disbelief, consider the elements that make up carrot cake. Yes, there is a considerable vegetable element, but the carrot actually delivers a subtle sweetness that puts this into dessert territory without trying too hard. And with the addition of actual sugar, nuts, chocolate chips, perhaps a raisin or two, there are flavors that add plenty of sweetness. But is this where the excitement ends? Not at all. With the addition of just one ingredient — cottage cheese — the traditional carrot cake is elevated. She’s not just a cake. She’s a cake with moxie (and a welcome extra dose of protein).
While adding cottage cheese to carrot cake may sound unusual, it’s actually just one step away from adding full-fat yogurt into your cake mix, which is pretty common. So what exactly does cottage cheese achieve? From the angle of nutrition, using cottage cheese injects an extra 12 grams of protein per ½ cup serving, to be exact — making this a perfectly acceptable dessert or a protein-rich breakfast bite. It also adds moisture. Plus, leaving out the white sugar entirely and relying solely on the carrots, cottage cheese, cinnamon, and perhaps a minimal sugar topping for the sweet element, makes this a healthier alternative overall to a more classic carrot cake.
Cottage cheese adds moisture and balanced flavor
Cottage cheese is a bit of a controversial ingredient — high fives for those who also find joy in the humble cottage cheese and fruit bowl — but as a part of a cake sponge, it is putting in the hard work. To see just how much of an impact the cottage cheese had on both the texture and flavor, we made two versions to compare and contrast — one with cottage cheese, and a more classic, cottage cheese-less recipe. And just for fun, we made them muffin style.
In a classic carrot cake (or one with just a simple twist, like our orangey carrot cake or our mini carrot cupcakes), the ingredient that the cake relies on for a soft, tender crumb is vegetable oil. In this version, however, it’s the cottage cheese that does this, leaving out the vegetable oil entirely. The result? A carrot cake with a moist sponge and tender crumb, that despite the addition of white chocolate chips and chopped nuts, still manages to be light and fluffy.
But how does it taste? In a word, balanced. While a traditional carrot cake is quite sweet, making one with cottage cheese and fewer sugary elements, lets the natural sweetness of the carrots and the cottage cheese infuse into the sponge. There are ways to add extra sweetness back in, however. We used white chocolate chips, a brown sugar streusel topping, and white chocolate drizzle to add that hard-to-resist sweet desserty element. It’s this not-too-sweet but rather more balanced combination of a little sweet with some delightful crunch that has this cottage-cheesey carrot cake pulling double duty, making it as enjoyable as a dessert or afternoon snack as it is a quick breakfast bite.
