Comparing Creamy Spreads

As a dairy lover—albeit unrequited love—I’m often creating or making a recipe involving a cheese or cream. Desserts, main courses, breakfast breads like bagels or English muffins, and charcuterie boards all call for some type of creamy spread. Most people have a preference but can’t tell you the actual difference. Many of the five I’m comparing are interchangeable but not all.

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mascarpone | crème fraîche | cream cheese | ricotta | sour cream

Mascarpone is heavy cream with added citrus and a 60-75% fat content—rich and delicious.

Crème Fraîche is unpasteurized cream that naturally contains the right bacteria to stabilize it—no added thickeners and 30% fat content.

Cream Cheese is made from pasteurized cream and milk and stabilizers such as carob bean gum and carrageenan with a 33% fat content.

Ricotta Cheese is an Italian whey cheese made from cow, sheep, goat, or Italian water buffalo milk whey left over from other milk productions with citrus added for coagulation and 10% fat content. In Italian, ricotta translates to recooked. The liquid is strained via cheese cloth, and ricotta cheese is born.

Sour Cream is pasteurized cream that contains ingredients such as gelatin, rennin, or vegetable enzymes to stabilize it and make it thicker—it contains a 20% fat content.