When serving some mascarpone with French toast to my mother, she exclaimed: "Oh, this is the clotted cream I had when I was a little girl!"
Are mascarpone and clotted cream the same thing?
If not, what are the differences?
Cheese – Are mascarpone and clotted cream the same thing
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You need fresh, creamy raw milk to start with. Pour it into a wide, shallow pan and leave overnight for the cream to separate out.
When ready, heat the milk, very, very gently for about an hour. It should never come anywhere near boiling. Leave overnight again, then you can just scoop the cream off the top.
I honestly doubt that growing blue mould in cream for a few days will have much effect, but why not try, it won't harm you either.
Why is it not going to work? Mould needs oxygen to grow. When making blue cheese (or generally cheese with "internal" mould), holes are punched through the curd to create air channels to supply the mould with oxygen. A Wikipedia image of Gorgonzola clearly shows how the mould grows around one of these punch holes. You can also see how the mould only grows around other natural cracks in the curd, while there are large solid areas of cheese with no visible sign of mould at all.
If you don't do this and the curd is without naturals cracks, the mould will only grow on the cheese surface, like for example on a Camembert.
If you soak a piece of blue cheese in cream, some spores may of course dissolve and reach the surface, but they will only be able to grow on the cream's surface. Another problem is that Penicillium roqueforti is not growing particularly fast. Roquefort is for example ripened at least four months under ideal conditions, so just a few days will not allow much growth.
Why is it not going to harm you? Using harmless or perhaps even beneficial moulds like Penicillium roqueforti to prepare food is not only done for the taste, but also for their preserving functions. Or more precisely, different species of mould tend to fight each other, so seeding food with a "good" mould will prevent the growth of "bad" mould. Anyway, cream will get sour and taste bad long before dangerous amounts of mould would grow.
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Best Answer
They are completely different.
Clotted cream, also called Devonshire cream, is made by heating unpasteurized milk until a layer of cream forms on the surface. The mixture is then cooled, and the cream skimmed off. It has a butterfat content between 55 percent and 63 percent. Unlike creme fraiche it is not a cultured milk product, and is typically eaten as a tea-time accompaniment to scones or bread. Clotted cream is also naturally thickened by the heating process, whereas tartaric acid (a thickening agent) is added to mascarpone to create a firmer, smoother texture.
Mascarpone is classified as a curd cheese, unlike clotted cream and creme fraiche. The fat content in mascarpone is 25 percent. It is made by heating cream and adding tartaric acid to the mixture to further thicken it. The mixture is then cooled and strained, yielding the creamy-textured mascarpone. Mascarpone may be used as a dessert filling or as a thickener in savory sauces. Some methods of mascarpone production call for initially culturing the cream prior to heating and mixing it with tartaric acid.