Main Page
For breakfast
Cottage cheese casserole with pumpkin in the oven

Cottage cheese and pumpkin casserole, baked

An airy casserole with a stunning cross-section—a treasure trove of vitamins! A casserole with such a charming pattern and cheerful color will win over even the pickiest kids! Putting it together is much easier than it looks. And this beauty is packed with vitamins right to the brim!

UnicornSteak

Recipe author

Cottage cheese casserole with pumpkin in the oven

Watch the video

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Cottage cheese (moist, not dry)

800

Pumpkin (weight of the peeled flesh)

170

Water

Eggs

Salt

Sugar

3.5

Vanilla sugar

Flour

Vegetable oil

0.5

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 43 % 12 g

Fats 29 % 8 g

Carbohydrates 29 % 8 g

151 kcal

GI: 0 / 0 / 100

Cooking method

Step 1:

How do you make a baked cottage cheese and pumpkin casserole? Choose a juicy, sweet pumpkin for the casserole—mine is a butternut. Wash the pumpkin under running water, peel it, and grate it on the coarse side of a grater. Transfer it to a saucepan and pour in the water. Simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, until tender, about fifteen minutes. Instead of stewing it, you can roast the pumpkin in large pieces in the oven, but stewing is faster.
Step 2:

Transfer the pumpkin to a tall blender cup and blend it with an immersion blender until smooth. Set the puree aside for now.
Step 3:

Don't use dry cottage cheese! Cottage cheese in rectangular bricks is ideal, or, like mine, in a soft squeeze-tube package you press out by hand through a hole. Put the cottage cheese in a bowl.
Step 4:

Crack the eggs into the same bowl.
Step 5:

Add the salt, regular sugar, and vanilla sugar.
Step 6:

With a mixer, blend the cottage cheese into a single smooth mixture.
Step 7:

Now we'll split the cheese mixture into two parts: white and orange. Put all of the pumpkin puree and 300 grams of the cheese mixture from the first bowl into a separate bowl.
Step 8:

Mix the pumpkin-cheese mixture (the added puree makes it thinner than the white one), and add just enough flour to bring its thickness roughly in line with the white mixture. I added two tablespoons, but go by the consistency. Don't add flour to the white mixture!
Step 9:

Transfer the cheese mixtures into two separate cornets (paper piping cones). You can secure the long ends with rubber bands and cut them off later.
Step 10:

Grease the baking dish with oil. Mine is silicone, 7 inches (18 cm) across on the inside, with a 2-inch (5 cm) rim. Snip about 3/4 inch (2 cm) off the sealed tips of the cornets and carefully pipe the cheese mixture in rings, alternating colors, starting with the largest—the outer one. As soon as the first layer is completely filled with colored rings, move on to the second, in a staggered pattern. That is, try to lay a white ring over an orange one and an orange ring over a white one.
Step 11:

Keep working this way until you've used up all the cheese mixture. I ended up with three layers of colored rings. If you like, you can make a pattern on top. With a toothpick, draw several lines from the center out to the edges, then, between them, do the same but from the edges in toward the middle. Bake the casserole until the cheese sets and the top is lightly browned, about an hour, in an oven preheated to 300°F (150°C). The time can vary quite a bit.
Step 12:

Either way, the casserole should rise well and become firm not just at the edges but in the middle too. Once it's done, turn off the oven and leave the dish inside to cool gradually for about twenty minutes. That way the casserole loses as little of its volume as possible.

The casserole comes out airy and very tasty, with a rich pumpkin flavor and a light note of vanilla. It's springy and soft thanks to the eggs—you can even see tiny bubbles in the photo, though we didn't really beat the eggs. The aroma is so cozy and autumnal, it's beyond praise! And for its bright coloring, my family nicknamed it the "Pretty Casserole" :)
Don't let the cornets scare you off! It's much faster than spending half an hour spooning out the same kind of "zebra" pattern… With cornets, the key is to keep the order of the rings right, so white doesn't end up over white or orange over orange.
If, after you've already filled the cornets, it turns out one mixture is thicker than the other, no problem! Pipe the ring with the thicker mixture first, and fill the gaps with the thinner one.
Keep in mind that cottage cheese dishes are rather finicky and not the easiest to make. A lot depends on good-quality ingredients.
I strongly recommend using a kitchen scale.
Enjoy your meal!
Keep in mind that every oven is different. The temperature and baking time may differ from what's given in the recipe. To make any baked dish a success, take advantage of this helpful information about how ovens behave!
How do you bake a tall, tender casserole? Don't expect the cheese mixture to rise as much as, say, a yeast cake or a sponge cake. How tall a cottage cheese casserole turns out depends directly on the size of the dish you choose: the smaller the dish and the higher its sides, the thicker the layer of cheese mixture, and so the taller the finished casserole.
Important! For the cheese batter or filling to come out well, it's important to choose the cottage cheese carefully. A low-quality product can ruin your baking, since it directly affects the texture, flavor, and final result. For how to pick the right cottage cheese for batter or filling, read this article.