Cream Cheese Substitutions

Flavor: Mascarpone is milder, sweeter, and more buttery than cream cheese's distinctive tang. For cheesecakes where that tangy bite is essential, mascarpone will taste noticeably different — richer but less sharp. Adding a squeeze of lemon juice per cup of mascarpone helps approximate the tang.

Texture: Mascarpone is smoother and silkier than cream cheese, with a more luxurious mouthfeel. In frostings, it produces an incredibly smooth, spreadable consistency. The trade-off is that mascarpone is softer, so cream cheese frostings made with mascarpone may not hold stiff peaks as well — they're better suited for spreading than piping.