Recipe

Homemade Mascarpone Cheese

by Birgit Kerr on August 24, 2009 in Desserts

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Recipe Description

I often have trouble finding mascarpone cheese and when I do it is usually outrageously expensive around here, so a few years ago I started making my own! And the taste of the homemade stuff is even better than the store bought stuff and you know exactly what went into it too!

Preparation Instructions

You will also need:
Cooking thermometer
Several sheets of cheese cloth
Sieve

Preparation:

Heat cream in a heavy saucepan to 180 degrees F over medium-high heat, being careful that it does not scorch.

If you’re unsure about this step, you can make a double boiler by placing an oven proof glass bowl on top of a larger pan with water, so that the bowl touches the surface of the water. Boil the water and heat the cream that way. You won’t scorch the cream in a double boiler!

Remove from heat as soon as it comes up to temperature and stir in the tartaric acid. Continue stirring for 1-2 minutes. Transfer the mix to a glass or plastic container and refrigerate for 2 hours.

At this point, it should have thickened quite a bit. Set a sieve over a bowl and line it with a triple thickness of cheesecloth and pour in the mascarpone. Fold the excess cheese cloth over the top of your set cream.

Set it in the bottom shelf of your refrigerator and let it drain for another 10 hours.

Use within one week.

* Note: Ultra-pasteurized cream can have an “off” taste to it and can ruin your mascarpone cheese. The pasteurized cream can be also found in health food stores.

Ingredients

¼ teaspoons Tartaric Acid (available In Health Food Stores)
1 quart Pasteurized Heavy Cream (not ULTRA Pasteurized*)

10 Comments | Be the first to comment!

Comments

Susan on 8.24.2009

Mascarpone can be pretty expensive and I’m finding more and more recipes that use it. I personally prefer it over cream cheese as it tastes more creamy/buttery rather than tangy. This looks easy enough for even me!
Thanks for this.

MS Hospitality on 8.25.2009

I’m really going to try this. Some recipes just have to have mascarpone!

Flower Mama {LeAnna} on 8.25.2009

This is very similar to the way I make my mascarpone. Much, much cheaper than buying it – and not too difficult for even a novice cheese maker. Give it a whirl!

romansmom on 3.10.2010

Looks very good and easy! Glad they featured it in the blog post today. thanks!

grammie24 on 3.10.2010

Is tartaric acid the same as cream of tartar?

lisamc on 3.10.2010

Love lopve love mascarpone…but the age old question for me is where do you find cream that isn’t ultra pasturized? Health Food Sstore? Thanks for the post

Birgit Kerr on 3.10.2010

They are close to the same but not quite. Cream of tartar is a weaker salt derived from tartaric acid. It is also mixed with potassium hydroxide to neutralize the acid.

Seems the recommended ratio for substitution would be at least 2:1 cream of tartar to tartaric acid, meaning you would double up on cream of tartar. Those sources were talking about baking though, not cheese making.

I have never tried it myself, so I can’t say if substitution would work in the making of the mascarpone cheese.

I have a suspicion that it might not work since the acid is what makes it thicken up and if the acid is neutralized, then it may actually not do the job!

If anybody happens to be brave enough to try it, please do let us know how it works out!

If you can’t find the Tartaric Acid at the health food store, try wine making supply stores.

Birgit Kerr on 3.10.2010

Yes, I get the pasteurized cream at the health food store.

valerama on 3.10.2010

Ultra-pasteurized cheese can’t be used, not because of an “off” taste, but because of the heat treatment, it simply will not curdle.

The drawback for me is that I can no longer find whole cream that hasn’t been ultra-pasteurized. I’ve made this recipe before and it’s excellent, and so much cheaper than store bought.

Birgit Kerr on 3.11.2010

Valerama, yes, it’s getting harder to get the pasteurized cream. We still seem to have a few of stores around here that carry it. As for the off taste, you are right that all ultra pasteurized won’t thicken.
I did however add the note about the off taste because you can get it to thicken with a mix of ultra pasteurized and not (a little less so but still workable) but it added the aforementioned off-taste.
I tried it once because I didn’t have quite enough pasteurized cream on hand and it really wasn’t worth the shortcut! I probably didn’t express that adequately in the recipe, so thanks for pointing it out more clearly!

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