What is Mascarpone Cheese?

Question: What is Mascarpone Cheese?

The world is full of creamy cheeses, but where does mascarpone fit in?

Answer: Mascarpone (pronounced mahs-car-POH-nay) is best known as an ingredient in the Italian dessert tiramisu . It's creamy and slightly sweet from the cream it's made of. When it comes down to it, mascarpone really is just thickened cream that's on it's way to turning into butter. It's made from only two ingredients, whole cream and citric or tartaric acid (to thicken the cream). That's it. The process is so simple you can even make your own mascarpone cheese at home.

Mascarpone should have a very smooth texture with no lumps or graininess. The flavor should be milky and lightly sweet. It tends to go bad quickly, so use an open container of mascarpone within a few days.

The closest cousins to mascarpone are probably English clotted cream and French creme fraiche. However, high-quality creamy ricotta or cream cheese can also be a substitute for mascarpone.

Besides tiramisu, what can mascarpone be used for? In both sweet and savory dishes, mascarpone can add a creamy, rich element.

Cooking with Mascarpone

• Make a Strawberry Mascarpone Tart
• Make a mascarpone pie - Chocolate Mascarpone Pie
• Or, make a cake - Lemon Mascarpone Layer Cake or Ginger Mascarpone Icebox Cake
• Use it to make truffles - Mascarpone White Chocolate Truffles
• Make a pasta sauce - Mascarpone and Gorgonzola Two Cheese Pasta Sauce
• Baked Pasta - Baked Rigatoni with Mascarpone
• Macaroni and Cheese - Very Creamy Mac 'n' Cheese
• Or quinoa - Creamy Quinoa with Mascarpone Cheese, Peas and Prosciutto
• Use mascarpone cheese to thicken soup, such as Spinach Soup with Mascarpone Cheese
• Make a traditional Italian recipe - Pheasant with Cognac and Mascarpone - Fagiano al Cognac e Mascarpone
• Sprinkle cocoa powder or chocolate shavings over mascarpone with a little sugar and eat it with a spoon
• Drizzle honey over mascarpone and use it as a dip for fruit

More Soft and Creamy Italian Cheeses

Ricotta: Fresh ricotta has a slightly sweet, milky flavor. Traditionally, cheesemakers made fresh ricotta by heating whey (the liquid that remains after curds form during the cheesemaking process) until it thickened into soft, fluffy curds. Some cheesemakers still make ricotta from whey and some make it from whole milk. You can make ricotta at home using cow's milk and lemon or vinegar.

Mozzarella: Well-known and loved, this mild cheese belongs in the category of stretched-curd cheeses. This means the cheese goes through a step that involves pulling and twisting the curds during the cheesemaking process. This gives the cheese a texture that is slightly stringy. In creamy stretched curd cheeses, like fresh Mozzarella, this stringiness should hardly be detectable. Mozzarella is usually made from cows' milk, unless it is called mozzarella di bufala, which is rare and made from the milk of water buffalo.

Crescenza (also called Crescenza-Stracchino): A thick and runny rindless cow's milk cheese with a creamy-whitish color and tangy, yeasty flavor. Crescenza is typically aged around a week. The appearance is very similar to what a big chunk of melted Monterrey Jack looks like, and the flavor is similar as well. Crescenza melts well and can be added to pizza, polenta or pasta or simply dress up the cheese with olive oil and herbs and spread it on bread.