12 Reasons Mascarpone Is the Secret Ingredient to Everything Delicious

This Italian triple-cream cheese is technically a cheese but has the texture of a wonderfully thick cream. It adds delight to all manner of recipes: It's the essential element in tiramisu; makes a luxurious frosting for sugar-and-spice cake; is a super-easy tart filling; adds rich, creamy depth to pastry puffs; and is the essential ingredient in icebox cake, semifreddo, and more.

1. It Takes the Cake

Mascarpone is a triple-cream cheese that adds a rich, silky component to any cake, but it definitely adds something extra special to this four-layer Sugar-and-Spice Cake.

Truly, this classic creamy, coffee-flavored Italian dessert would be nothing without mascarpone.

Mascarpone is a key ingredient in some totally delicious non-Italian desserts like these rich, nutty pastry cups (which are like a dessert all on their own). Use them to make Cranberry Curd Tartlets or try them with a different fruit or cream filling. 

Hidden under the neatly arranged orange rounds in this gorgeous chocolate roasted-orange tart is a mascarpone filling. It provides the perfect creamy balance between the chocolate crust and the citrus topping.

Some love salt, others love sweet. These mascarpone-filled blue-cheese pastry puffs are dipped in caramel and sprinkled with coarse salt -- you might say they're the best of both worlds.

Ultra-rich, super-creamy, yes that's mascarpone. Sure, there's also sour cream, cream cheese, and goat cheese in this decadent no-bake dessert, but it's the mascarpone that gives it a velvety-smooth texture.