Cottage Cheese Pancakes

This is not my recipe – and I’d like to pretend neither is this amateur picture, but sadly I can’t blame anyone else on that one – but I felt compelled to share. These Cottage Cheese Pancakes, originally titled Currant Cottage Cheese Pancakes, are a a Food52 creation – technically a Deborah Madison creation. A self-proclaimed genius recipe, that you can find in this book, along with another 99 equally genius ones.

I sort of have to agree with the genius part. Cottage cheese has never looked or tasted particularly interesting to me, but as someone who needs a lot of protein to survive, I’ve found ways to gaslight myself into enjoying it over the years.

I’ve tried many things. From a disastrous cottage cheese fruit bowl I wouldn’t recommend to my worse enemy to many versions of a simple toast – topped with cucumber, tomatoes, basil olive oil, anything really, that I’d much rather have on top of ricotta cheese. Those aren’t nearly as foul as the cottage cheese bowl, but they aren’t mind-blowing either. Which is fine, because at the end of the day, I get my protein intake, and that’s all that matters. I guess.

But this is a food blog! We love food here. We want it to be protein-packed and decent. Heck, we want it to be delicious!

See? This recipe is genius. The pancakes are fluffy and delicate, like any classic recipe. But if, like me, you like sneaking protein into your food, these are your new breakfast staple.

The original calls for currants, but I’m not particularly fond of the little things, so I always skip them. According to the recipe, you can substitute them for raisins, but why would you ruin your pancakes like that? With a generous drizzle of maple syrup or a gentle dusting of powered sugar, perhaps a few berries on the side, I think these are perfectly fine without any of the add-ons. But if you must add anything, I believe blueberries would work just fine.

The cheese curds themselves add a nice texture and they get delightfully crispy once they hit the hot, butter-slathered surface of a frying pan. Simple, and genius.