Mascarpone is a type of Italian cheese, has a delicate and delicate taste, which is how it differs from many other types of cheese. By the way, one more difference is that with its consistency it is more reminiscent of fat cottage cheese: it is also soft and viscous. Surely many are interested in the question of whether it is possible to cook a mascarpone at home, because in the store it costs a lot. There was a time when this cheese was one of the delicacies, and you could buy it only in certain places. Today it is an easily accessible product, moreover, it can really be prepared at home.
If we talk about real Italian mascarpone, then it is prepared from cream of buffalo or cow's milk. In the Milan area, and it is there that they prepare the most delicious mascarpone, buffalo milk is most often used. The Italians themselves, engaged in the production of this cheese, argue that for the manufacture of mascarpone, milk of special buffalo is taken, and which ones are kept secret. Although, this is most likely just a good legend, which helps to advertise a good product.
Now I want to say a few words about the technology of making mascarpone. In order to get this tender cheese, cream must be heated to 80-850C. To thicken the cream, a small amount of lemon juice or white wine vinegar is added during the cooking process. But what else the Italians add to cheese remains a mystery to us. And, nevertheless, even this is enough to cook mascarpone at home. Today, there are several recipes for the preparation of this cheese, one of which adheres to Italian technology.
Homemade mascarpone using Italian technology
To prepare cheese for this recipe, we need the following:
- Cream, they should be approximately 15% fat (this is the total fat content, in dry matter it will be slightly higher). If you take heavy cream, they should be diluted with pasteurized milk. For example, if you take 125 ml of cream with 38% fat, you need to dilute 250 ml of 3% milk. If you use too fat cream to make cheese, then it will turn out to be tasteless, moreover, it will not be a viscous mass, but real butter. Yes, the fat content of the cream also depends on the fat content of the cream. So it should be equal to about 40-45%, therefore, the fat content of the cream should be small.
- Lemon juice, it can also be replaced with white wine vinegar. It is needed in order for the cream to clot.
- Auxiliary items: colander, gauze (or baby diaper), a thermometer to measure the temperature of the liquid.
Well, now, directly, let's talk about how to cook mascarpone at home. Take a saucepan and pour cream into it. We put it on fire and use a thermometer to heat the cream to a temperature of 850 ° C, not forgetting to stir constantly. When the desired temperature is reached, remove the cream from the stove and add 1-2 teaspoons of lemon juice to them. When the temperature drops to 820, we put the pan again on fire, maintaining the temperature at the same mark. Cream is constantly interfering. First, small lumps will appear in them, then the mass will look like kefir, and then a dense consistency similar to a cream is formed. This suggests that we got what we need. Remove the cream from the stove.
Now it remains to go through the last stage of making mascarpone cheese at home. After removing from the plate, the cream should be cooled to a temperature of 40-500C. Then a colander is taken and covered with gauze folded in several layers. On the cheesecloth, cream is laid out in order to glass the serum. When the latter drains well, gauze must be tied and hung on something so that the remaining drops of serum can drain. Then we return the bag to the colander, and to squeeze it, we put on top a not very heavy load. We put in the refrigerator for 10-12 hours. That's it, the mascarpone cheese is ready at home!