Homemade Mascarpone Cheese

Mascarpone cheese is hard to come by and even when it is available, it is very pricey. I found on the web that it was possible to make my own. I Googled “make mascarpone cheese” and found many sites for the recipe, unfortunately I don’t remember what site I got the recipe from. The recipe seems very simple (but simple does not mean easy – more on that in a moment).

Homemade Mascarpone Cheese

1 pint (500 mL) whipping cream (35% m.f.)
1 Tbsp lime or lemon juice (I used lime)

First things first, I doubled this recipe which I do not recommend.

Set a double boiler up so that the bottom of a medium metal bowl sits slightly in the simmering water. Pour the whipping cream in. Whisk or stir occasionally until the cream reaches 180 degrees F. This took forever (45 minutes to be exact). Actually, my cream never reached 180. The closest I got was 165 degrees. I figured this isn’t right (it shouldn’t take this long) so I just whisked in the lime juice and hoped that it would work. I whisked lightly and frequently for another 10 minutes over the water bath and it didn’t look like it had thickened the cream, although the cream had reduced a little from the 50 minutes it’d been heating up. I thought that it was a failure. I took the bowl off the double boiler and let it cool to room temperature (though I think the site I went to said to cool slightly) before covering it with plastic wrap and putting it into the refrigerator overnight. Because I was certain that it wasn’t going to work I left it in the fridge for two nights before taking a look at it. To my surprise it had set!!!! I proceeded to take the bowl out of the fridge and scooped the “cheese” into a fine sieve lined with a coffee filter set over a bowl to allow any excess liquid to be removed from the cheese. I covered it with plastic wrap again and placed it back in the refrigerator overnight yet again. The next day I took a look and it really did look like Mascarpone cheese. I took a taste and mmm…it was very good. I was so happy because I had made 20 ounces of Mascarpone cheese and it had only cost me $2.75 in ingredients.

Next time when I make Mascarpone cheese, and I will make it again, I will stick to the original recipe of 500 mL whipping cream and 1 Tbsp lime/lemon juice because I think this is the reason I wasn’t able heat the cream to 180 degrees F. Or I might follow another recipe that uses tartaric acid in place of the lime/lemon juice. I wonder if tartaric acid is easy to find…