Homemade Mascarpone Cheese

This is The Chef’s baby. He is so stoked about this. I (The Wife) have only had mascarpone cheese maybe twice before he discovered how to make it. That stuff is kind of expensive. Have you ever bought it? It’s like $5-7 for 8 oz. No thanks. The Chef figured out how insanely easy (and cheap) it was and has made about 4 batches in 3 weeks. I’ve had mascarpone cheese coming out of my ears! Someone save me!

But it is delicious and there is so much you can use it for. This post will just be for how you make it, but stayed tuned for some yummy ideas!

I tried it out this time to make sure it was as easy as what he was bragging about. If you know how to read a thermometer, then you’re golden. Grab your whipping cream that I just know you have stock piled in your fridge. Oh you don’t? It’s just our weird family who buys it in multiple half-gallon quantities…

You need:

2 cups of heavy whipping cream. The research that we’ve done has suggested not using ultra-pasteurized, but we used Costco’s organic whipping cream, which I believe is ultra pasteurized, and it worked just fine.
1 Tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
A candy thermometer

Pour the heavy cream into a medium to large saucepan over medium high heat. Bring the cream to a simmer, being careful not to burn the bottom, until it reads 190˚ F.

Pour in the freshly squeezed lemon juice and stir for 5 minutes, constantly, maintaining the heat at 190˚.

The cream will have thicken enough to coat the back of the spoon. Take off the heat and set the saucepan in a bowl of cold water/ ice water. Let it come to room temperature.

In another large bowl, drape a clean towel, multiple layers of cheese cloth, or what we used, a clean apron, over the bowl. Once the cream has come to room temp, pour onto the cloth etc. and cover the whole bowl with plastic wrap.

Place in a refrigerator, and allow the cream to strain overnight. Once it’s finished straining, work the cheese off of the material and place in an air tight container. You have mascarpone cheese!!

You’ll see cloudy water in the bowl that was drained from the cream. This is the whey. You can throw this out, unless you have some magical use for it.

Since it’s fresh, with no preservatives, it’s best to use the mascarpone cheese within a week. We don’t want any upset tummies. That’s no fun.

Ok, so how easy was that?? Don’t you seriously feel like an artisan cheese maker? I can totally see why The Chef was so excited. I’m more than a little geeked.

Come back to hear what you can do with it now!

-The Everyday Chef and Wife-