Home-Made Mascarpone
Another adventure in cheesemaking. This time a few wobbles along the way but much more confidence.
Mascarpone is one of the easiest cheese to make, and i think i’ll easily remember the recipe without having to refer to it again – something i’m aiming for in my cooking this year. Again, it was from Artisan Cheesemaking at Home, a book i received at christmas.
Now, there is a lot to learn and read about cheesemaking (sterilising, use of metal / non-reactive pans etc.) – if you do want to try it i’d highly definitely recommend getting one of the good cheesmaking books out there to learn more, or look through a proper cheesmaking blog but here’s a quick lowdown of the recipe anyway (maybe in the future i’ll be able to put forward all you need to know about cheesemaking myself but for now i’m a novice!):
Ingredients
- 500ml Double Cream (the recipe calls for heavy cream so i guess you could go for a different cream?)
- 1/2 Cup of skimmed milk powder
- 1 Lemon
Method
- Whisk together the cream and skimmed milk powder until smooth.
- Slowly warm the cream to 180F (this should take about 40mins, maybe use a water bath of you can’t get the heat to increase slowly straight on the hob. Constantly stir the cream will scorch.
- Turn off the heat.
- Add the juice of half the lemon.
- Stir with a metal spoon until small lumps start to appear on the back of the spoon.
- Add the other half of the lemon juice and stir in.
- Pop the pan in the fridge overnight.
- In the morning, wrap the cheese in muslin and squeeze into a ball, getting rid of any excess water (i really didn’t get much, quite odd compared to other cheesemaking – not sure if that’s normal).
- Stick in a tub.
- Eat.
I’m going to try this tonight:
By the way, the gnocchi, tomato and mascarpone bake was amazing and so simple. i left out the spinach from the recipe attached and it was way easy!