Butter boards. TikTok ramen noodles. A McDonald’s McFlurry and hash brown sandwich. Something called a “Jennifer Aniston salad” that I’m pretty sure Jennifer Aniston herself denied ever eating and claimed it was instead a type of Cobb salad (though who really cares, I’m sure either iteration is tasty).

What do the above foods have in common, besides sounding vaguely like fever dreams cooked up by someone with an insatiable (or maybe, possibly some-type-of-high-induced) appetite?

Why, these are all viral recipes that have been trending online in the last year or so, largely thanks to TikTok…a platform that I try to avoid because of things like this that make me insanely hungry.

Have I tried any of the aforementioned “recipes” or food combos? No, even though the Jennifer Aniston salad sounds pretty good, and actually quite healthy. I tend to steer clear of the trends because a lot of them are a little too out there for me to be remotely interested in (sorry, but I’d take a traditional cheese board over an icky-sounding butter board any day of the week), or they’re so laden with carbohydrates that just aren’t bolus-worthy to me that my taste buds aren’t even tempted.

But the one that did pique my interest recently is cottage cheese cookie dough – both in the form of ice cream and non-frozen form.

Cottage cheese? Cookie dough? Together??? This duo also sounded really bizarre to me, but it was getting so hyped up on my Instagram feeds that I knew I had to try it for myself. The first recipe I made consisted of four simple ingredients: cottage cheese, honey, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. Easy enough. I tossed everything but the chocolate chips into my blender and whipped it all together until the consistency was smooth, then poured it into a container, added the chocolate chips in, gave it a good stir, and then put it into my freezer overnight. I tried it the next day and couldn’t believe how delicious it tasted! As someone who is generally repulsed by cottage cheese, I was most pleasantly surprised by how it instantly became more appetizing in appearance once all the curds were blended out of it.

But I was less impressed by how much honey I needed to use in this particular recipe: 1/3 cup, which contains roughly 90 grams of carbs! I knew it was a key ingredient to help sweeten up the concoction, but I also knew that since I found it so yummy it would be difficult to resist eating it in large quantities…making it tricky to bolus for and causing unwanted blood sugar spikes. So I figured the next batch I put together would need some modifications.

I went to one of my favorite healthy foodie Instagram accounts, @eatingbirdfood, for some inspiration. This is one of the places that lauded the benefits of protein-packed cottage cheese cookie dough in the first place, so I figured she’d have a recipe I could adapt to suit my needs. Sure enough, she had one that I decided to make over. Here was her original ingredient list:

• 1 cup of cottage cheese, any kind
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup almond flour
• 1 tbsp natural peanut butter or almond butter
• 1/4 cup vanilla protein powder
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Not a bad starting point for my own take, considering the ingredient with the most carbs was the easiest one for me to sub out. I replaced the 2 tablespoons of maple syrup with sugar-free syrup, and I decided to use 2 scoops of my own low-carb vanilla protein powder instead of measuring with a full quarter-cup (sometimes, you just have to measure with your heart…as I did with the chocolate chips, pouring in a generous amount of semi-sweet ones instead of more-sugary milk chocolate ones). I also skipped the vanilla because I figured my protein powder would add enough of a vanilla-y punch to my recipe.

I combined everything and immediately fell in love with my version of cottage cheese cookie dough. It really did resemble real cookie dough, only my version contained only a few grams of carbohydrates and way more protein. It’s been a long time since I genuinely enjoyed something sweet that wasn’t so bad for me, and that wasn’t a boring old serving of fruit. And it had a minimal impact on my blood sugar levels, making this recipe a genuine keeper all around. Maybe it’s a sign that I should play around more with some of the more interesting-sounding viral recipes that are out there – I’m looking at you, dunkaroo dip – and adapt them to suit my (and my diabetes’) tastes!