Without gentle mascarpone cheese can not prepare any delicious dessert tiramisu or other fine Italian sweets. Special technology, which is produced by this product allows you to get a thick oily mass with the delicious taste of fresh cream - an ideal base for sweet treats. If you buy the mascarpone was not possible, a similar product can be obtained at home.

"Conditional" cheese

Mascarpone - a unique product invented in the Italian province of Lombardy. It is believed that the first cream cheese began to produce in the 16-17 centuries, although the name of the inventor mascarpone history is not retained.

According to experts, it can not be called mascarpone cheese, because the technology of making this product does not imply the use of starters and special enzymes. Fatty cream simply heated and mixed with a small amount of acid. The mixture is slightly heated and then poured into linen bags to glass excess fluid. Ready cheese has a soft creamy texture and sweet, creamy taste. Despite the addition of acid (usually lemon juice or wine vinegar), the cheese obtained is not sour.

Not only tiramisu

It is believed that the best mascarpone mixture obtained from the milk of cows and buffaloes, and animals must feast exclusively sweet grass and fresh flowers. It is difficult to say how modern manufacturers strictly adhere to these requirements, but even the most ordinary mascarpone cheese from cow's milk has a very soft, slightly sweet flavor.

In its pure form mascarpone usually do not use - the cheese is usually only serves as a basis for a variety of sweet dishes or sauces. Mascarpone well with vanilla Vanilla: sweet tenderness , Chocolate, coffee, biscuit and shortcrust pastry, a variety of fruits and berries, cheese, mushrooms, ham, fish and many other products. This cream cheese can be used instead of butter for sandwiches Sandwiches. Pros and cons For the preparation of certain types of pizzas to create the creamy sauces. But still often becomes the basis of mascarpone delicate desserts in the Italian style: the different types of tiramisu, fruit pies and mousses, soft cream cakes.

Mascarpone is clearly not designed for those who want to lose weight: caloric content of this cheese from 400 to 500 calories per 100 grams, the fat content - up to forty percent. The protein in the product a little bit - just five percent. Cheese is not recommended for obese, hypertension, liver and gastrointestinal tract. At the same time, small quantities of cheese hardly hurt a healthy person, but rather will be an excellent source of vitamins, essential amino acids and trace elements.

Adequate replacement

Mascarpone can be purchased in many supermarkets, but in some regions this cheese is quite rare. As a result, the hostess started to cook tiramisu or other original dessert with exquisite taste, it is necessary to cook the cheese yourself or seek it more affordable alternative.

More often than not propose to replace the mascarpone cheese. Inexperienced people will not notice the substitution, if instead of mascarpone use carefully rubbed through a sieve fat cottage cheese mixed with whipped cream. Gourmets, most likely, noting that the curd has a sour taste than sweet cream cheese. As for the low-fat diet of cheese, it can be used for the preparation of low-calorie versions of desserts for those who are more important than the energy value of food its taste. These desserts may be very attractive, but the original they have little in common.

Another popular replacement mascarpone - fat (preferably rural) sour cream or fat sour cream mixed with thick cream. You can also experiment with different mixes of dairy products - cheese, sour cream Smetana: untold riches of Russian cuisine , Cream, butter and even - to obtain the desired taste. If so then carefully wipe the cream and beat well, it is unlikely someone will be able to guess that the raw material for this piece of confectionary art served as inexpensive Italian cheese, but simple products available.

Mascarpone with their hands

Mascarpone cheese can be made with their own hands at home. Of course, all the subtleties of the process play at home is unlikely, but get a product with a taste that is virtually identical to the original, it is possible.

The hands can be prepared mascarpone cream. Cream fat content should be taken thirty or thirty-five percent. Using a vegetable cream unacceptable. The hot cream is necessary to add the lemon juice (per liter of cream will need three tablespoons of juice), then heat the mixture to simmer for ten minutes. After that you should fold the cream on the white linen or cotton cloth, laid in a colander, which, in turn, set over a pan or other container. It is important to use a linen or cotton, that is quite a thick cloth. If there exists only a gauze, it must be folded in several layers.

It is very simple to prepare an analog of the mascarpone cream. Sour cream is advisable to take the most and the least fatty acid. In a pinch, you can use a mixture of sour cream dvadtsatiprotsentnym with melted butter. Smetana composed in a linen bag and suspended for ten to twelve hours of tank draining whey. It turns thick cream with gentle expressive creamy taste.

Some recommend to mix the cream with the milk (in four parts one part sour milk), heated to seventy degrees, add the lemon juice, and then the mixture was suspended for the night in a canvas bag. After five to six hours is supposed to be a cream, cottage cheese-like consistency, but with a pleasant creamy taste.

Maria Bykov

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