I've been making mascarpone cheese out of necessity. You see my favourite desert calls for mascarpone cheese, which I used to find at my local grocery store. No more, its been discontinued. And I can't find it anywhere in the city. I know, the horror!
Well, I discovered that it's easy peasy to make and cheap too. Which kind of makes me upset at the prices they were charging for a 475 gram container of mascarpone cheese at the grocery store. It is criminal! But I digress...
I found a recipe for mascarpone cheese in Barbara Ciletti's Making Great Cheese: 30 Simple Recipes from Cheddar to Chèvre.
My biggest challenge at making mascarpone cheese was trying to locate tartaric acid. Since there are no cheese-making supply business and cooking stores in the city don't carry tartaric acid, I thought I might be out of luck. I discovered along the tour of the city's many wine making supply stores that I can substitute citric acid for tartaric acid. And it worked! And at a fraction of the cost of store bought. I still can't believe how much I'm saving.
So, now I that I have homemake mascarpone and homemade gluten-free lady-finger cookies, there will soon be Tiramisu.
Good Eats!
