Scotland loving lifting foodies, I have created the perfect breakfast for you! I took inspiration at the traditional Scottish dessert as well as from Chantal’s favourite baker, Paul Holywood, and transformed it into a protein rich, calorie friendly breakfast. Curd, oats, eggs and berries make this the perfect pre-workout and generally a great way to start your day. Enjoy!
Chantal and I love to spend the summer, or at least the hottest part of it, in colder places whenever possible, a tradition we call “the great summer escape”, and the last few years we chose Scotland for our destination. When you spend some time in Scotland, you can’t help to notice, and fall in love with, two very iconic products: raspberries and Scottish oats. Cheap as chips and in great quality and quantity, you can find them in every supermarket and farmers market. Naturally, the Scots have their own way of celebrating those treasures: cranachan! And I wanted to marry those ingredients with our incredibly easy cheesecake, which, thankfully, turned out great.
Modern versions of cranachan contain cream and whisky, which are out of question for our needs. But the original recipe uses crowdie, a Scottish cheese pretty similar to curd. So there is nothing “wrong” with choosing curd for a cranachan recipe, it is an even more traditional approach to this dessert.
Usually fresh, in season raspberries are used and I have to say that Scottish raspberries are excellent. A lot sweeter than the stuff we usually get here, which always amazes me, as the temperatures in Scotland are much lower. Right now, it is winter, and I don’t like to buy raspberries from the other end of the world, so I chose to use the mixed frozen berries that are always in my freezer. The fruits get cooked anyways, so there is little advantage in sticking to the fresh stuff anyways.
The oats suck up at lot of liquid while baking, so the end result is much firmer that a usual cheesecake, but not dry at all!
Ingredients
- 1,5kg low fat curd
- 550g (10) eggs
- 250g oats
- 400g frozen berries
- calorie free sweetener, vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180°C. Put a pan over medium heat and slowly toast the oats until fragrant and golden. Watch them like a hawk, they burn quite easily. This step is crucial for getting the “oaty”-taste of the cheesecake: do not omit it!
- Whisk the eggs together with a few pinches of salt in a food processor (use a large bowl).
- Stir, or carefully whisk in the curd, vanilla and sweetener (to taste). Add the frozen berries and oats and until well combined but do not overmix to protect the berries from bursting.
- Line a deep baking tray (30x20cm) with baking paper, pour in the mixture and and bake about 75 minutes at 160°C (turn the oven down now).
- Remove from the oven and let sit to cool down and firm up before removing from the tray.
Macros
The recipe makes 8 portions, each having the following macros:
- 364kcal
- 39g protein
- 31g carbs
- 9g fat
The cake is incredibly satiating and the macros fit well for a cut, maybe with additonal low-cal fruits. For bulking you could add some fats (nut butter!) and/or other fruits or have it as a dessert.
Enjoy baking and let me know in the comments below how it turned out!
Beary Strong 
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