TikTok's Cottage Cheese Bread Is Impossibly Fluffy
Cottage cheese is enjoying its time in the spotlight, largely thanks to TikTok, like so many trends these days. It's appearing as an unexpected ingredient in a wide array of recipes: from cookie dough and lasagna to ice cream. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before it found its way into bread.
If you prefer your bread to be soft and sponge-like, then the cottage cheese bread from TikTok is for you. As user @carolinagelen demonstrates, you'll need just five ingredients to bring this protein-rich loaf to life: cottage cheese, egg whites, flour, sugar, and yeast. These pantry staples combine to create a loaf that rises tall and bakes to a golden crisp. Plus, you don't have to sit around and babysit a starter like you do with sourdough.
What truly sets this cottage cheese bread apart is its impossibly fluffy interior, which remains almost squishy soft. A creative relative of milk bread or brioche, this melt-in-your-mouth loaf is easy to make and even easier to enjoy.
What does cottage cheese do to bread?
The use of cottage cheese as a main ingredient has several effects on the final outcome of this bread. Comprising about 80% water, cottage cheese serves not only as an undercover hydration booster, but also as a source of additional moisture for recipes. Particularly when blended with egg whites, which further lighten and aerate the mixture, cottage cheese lends a unique tenderness to breads and baked goods, keeping them soft and fluffy.
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This is because the addition of cottage cheese creates what's known as an enriched dough. While most lean or standard breads consist of basic ingredients like flour, water, salt, and yeast, incorporating fat, sugar, or dairy — such as cottage cheese, milk, eggs, oil, or butter — results in luxurious, billowy bread. The fat essentially acts as a tenderizer, yielding a pull-apart, fluffy interior.
But the influence of cottage cheese doesn't stop at texture; it also enhances the bread's flavor. Thanks to its fat content, the bread will have a richer and more complex taste. Finally, the high protein content in cottage cheese also changes the nutritional profile of the loaf, yielding a higher-protein option that provides around 15 grams of protein per slice.
Cottage cheese bread iterations
While the popular TikTok recipe calls for only five ingredients, the beauty of fluffy cottage cheese bread lies in its versatility; you can make it with a variety of ingredients and still achieve those delightfully fluffy, soft results. Try including extra mix-ins like nuts, dried fruit, or chocolate to taste. On the other hand, you can also omit certain ingredients; for instance, flour isn't strictly essential for this loaf. There are multiple recipes that substitute rolled oats, offering a flourless, gluten-free version of cottage cheese bread.
If you prefer to keep things as simple as possible, there are variations of the recipe that require only two ingredients to make cottage cheese bread. This can be achieved in a couple of ways: either by using cottage cheeseand self-rising flour, or by combining cottage cheese with egg white powder (mixed with water). Both options will yield fluffy, pull-apart bread.