Cottage cheese ice cream with raspberries

The viral cottage cheese ice cream, done our way: quark and skyr blended smooth, about 7 g of protein and around 110 kcal per 100 g.

Ice cream built on a fresh cheese is the most visible dessert trend of the past two years: high protein is pulling the entire frozen dessert market along, and cottage cheese itself has gone from forgotten dairy aisle filler to a growth category. Most of the viral versions are made in a Ninja CREAMi and hinge on blending the cheese completely smooth — lumps do not disappear later, they have to go in the blender. In Slovakia and Czechia the obvious substitute for cottage cheese is tvaroh (quark): similarly high in protein, cheap, and smoother once blended. Raspberry purée adds the acidity that pushes the dairy note towards cheesecake.

Type: Frozen yogurt · Servings: 6 · Difficulty: Easy

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 350 g quark, low-fat (tvaroh) (soft tub quark, not the firm block)
  • 250 g high-protein yogurt / skyr 0 %
  • 200 g semi-skimmed milk 1.5 %
  • 80 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
  • 50 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 30 g invert sugar syrup (80 % solids) (or 25 g of honey (not for children under 1))
  • 10 g cornflour (cornstarch)
  • 120 g raspberries (for topping or folding in at the end, fresh or frozen, for the purée)

Making the mix

  1. Whisk the milk, granulated sugar, dextrose, invert sugar syrup and cornflour (cornstarch) together in a pan.
  2. Bring almost to the boil, stirring constantly, and simmer for a minute until the mixture thickens. The starch binds water that would otherwise freeze into crystals.
  3. Pour the mixture into a tall container and let it cool to room temperature.
  4. Add the quark and skyr and blend with a stick or jug blender for at least a minute, until the mix is completely smooth with no grains left. This is the single most important step in the recipe.
  5. Blend the raspberries and push them through a sieve to get rid of the pips. Set the purée aside.
  6. Cover the mix and chill it in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

  1. Divide the chilled mix between CREAMi tubs, filling each no higher than the MAX line (a full batch makes about two standard tubs).
  2. Put the lids on and freeze on a level surface for 24 hours.
  3. Place a tub in the machine and run the Lite Ice Cream program.
  4. Use a spoon to dig a well about 4 cm wide in the centre, all the way to the bottom, add the raspberry purée and run the Mix-in program.
  5. If the ice cream is crumbly or powdery, run Re-spin (many users add 1–2 tablespoons of milk first).

Programme: Lite Ice Cream

The Lite Ice Cream program is for mixes low in fat and sugar. If your model does not have it, use Ice Cream and expect to need one Re-spin. Fill the tubs only to the MAX line and freeze them level.

Total time: 28 h 58 min

Method — Compressor ice cream maker

  1. Switch on the ice cream maker 5–10 minutes ahead so the bowl can pre-chill.
  2. Pour in the chilled mix no higher than the fill line (with a smaller bowl, churn in two batches) and churn for 25–35 minutes, until it has the consistency of thick whipped cream.
  3. When the ice cream is ready, transfer it to a tub and swirl in the raspberry purée with just two or three strokes of the spatula, so the ripples stay visible.
  4. Transfer to a chilled container, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for 1.5 hours.

The mix is low in fat and high in water, so it hardens faster than cream ice cream. Let it stand for 10–15 minutes out of the freezer — or make it in a CREAMi instead.

Total time: 6 h 50 min

Method — Freezer-bowl ice cream maker

  1. Take the frozen bowl out of the freezer just before use, fit the paddle and switch the machine on.
  2. With the machine running, pour in the chilled mix — no more than two-thirds full; freeze the rest as a second batch.
  3. Churn for 20–30 minutes, until the ice cream thickens. There’s no point going longer — by then the bowl has warmed up.
  4. Swirl the raspberry purée into the finished ice cream with a few strokes of the spatula.
  5. Transfer to a chilled container and leave to harden in the freezer for 1.5 hours.

Freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours beforehand (until you can no longer hear the coolant sloshing inside). The mix must be thoroughly chilled.

Total time: 6 h 45 min

Stages

Preparation
20 min
Cooking
10 min
Cooling
20 min
Ageing in the fridge
4 h
Freezing
24 h
Processing in the machine
8 min
Total time
28 h 58 min

Plan: what to do and when

The whole recipe takes 28 h 58 min, of which 38 min is hands-on — the rest is waiting you can spend elsewhere.

The making itself fits into a single day — start at least 28 h 58 min before serving.

  • Prepare the mix (weigh and stir the ingredients) — 20 min
  • Cook the mix — 10 min
  • Cool the mix down — 20 min
  • Let the mix age in the fridge — 4 h
  • Put the mix in the freezer — 24 h
  • Process in the machine — 8 min

Serving and storage

It is best straight after spinning, as soft as soft-serve. From the freezer, let it stand for 10–15 minutes.

In a CREAMi tub it keeps in the freezer for weeks — level it off and spin it again before each serving. Ice cream from a conventional machine is best within three days.

Tips

  • If you can get cottage cheese (the lumpy fresh cheese), use it instead of the quark in the same quantity — but blend it twice as long, as the curds are bigger.
  • Want more protein? Replace 30 g of the milk with 30 g of unflavoured whey protein. The mix will be thicker, so loosen it with a tablespoon of milk before freezing.
  • There is a limit to how far you can cut the sugar here: without it the mix freezes into a block of ice. If you want it less sweet, swap the granulated sugar for erythritol and leave the dextrose and invert sugar as they are.
  • You can use blackcurrants, sour cherries or mango instead of raspberries; the more acidic the fruit, the better it works.

Why it works

Quark and skyr bring a lot of milk solids-non-fat — around 12 %, more than a classic cream ice cream. The protein binds water and builds the texture that fat would otherwise provide, but total solids stay at only about 29 %, so the rest is water and the mix freezes hard. Hence the dextrose and invert sugar (high PAC) and the starch. Anti-freezing power (PAC) tells you how much water stays unfrozen at a given temperature — the higher it is, the softer the ice cream. Dextrose has almost twice the anti-freezing power of granulated sugar but is less sweet, which is why the two sugars are combined.

Related recipes

How we calculate the composition · What PAC and POD mean · Balance this mix in the calculator

Sources