Kuch khaas nahi…….bas “aam” baat hai…….( well, let’s just say: “mango all the way!!!”)

 

 

Do I begin with my newly acquired shot glasses or the challenge thrown at me…….well, let us begin with the challenge. It was a compliment that I took up as a challenge. Now, challenges scare and excite me at the same time.

I had invited friends, neighbours and incidentally our countrymen as well for dinner last night. We decided to split the food. Our main purpose was to get together for some fun. My friend said, dessert has got be done by you as it is your domain or something to that effect….and I don’t need much to egg me on…..

You must have heard the children’s song, wheels on the bus go round and round……..similarly, wheels in my brain go round and round……got thinking, WHAT SHOULD I MAKE?!!!! This season we have had no mangoes in my house for whatever reason and the mango season is at an end. So, I decided it had to do be made with mango.

A massive omission on my part, for which I owe a huge apology to a dear friend, Sherry. The original cheesecake recipe is hers and is for keeps. The results are yumm each time! However, I must say that I can not attain her level of perfection. She is definitely the dessert queen and been my guru over the years.

To carry on with my “rambling”, recently, I had picked some cute shot glasses and my fingers were itching to use those. So, yes, it had to be a mango dessert in shot glasses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made some mango cheese cake without the biscuit base as I wanted to scoop it out after baking. In fact, I just built the dessert up as I went along. Only thing, I ended up freezing quite a bit of my mango cheese cake as I only needed a little bit. So the mango cheese cake made the bottom layer. After it was set, I added a layer of sponge and topped it mango flavoured cream or you could call it mango mousse, if you wanted a fancy term. I served it with mango home-made mango ice cream on the side.

It was long process but totally worth it, especially for the appreciation I got from my guests. With my family it usually is a case of “ghar ki murgi dal barabar”. Happy smiles all round, what more could I ask for?

Here comes the recipe, in spite of all that “end of the season feelings”, I ended up using tinned mango pulp, which I enjoy anyway. I could eat it with any thing, toast, ice cream, on its own……

MANGO CHEESE CAKE LAYER

Ingredients

2 cups mango puree (I used tinned)

700gms cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)

1 ¼ cup caster sugar

2 tsp pure Vanilla extract

4 large eggs

Method

You will need a 9’ spring form cake tin.

Butter the tin lightly.

Preheat oven to 160C

In a stand mixer / large clean bowl with a hand beater, beat together cream cheese, caster sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. (Beat for about 8 – 10 minutes)

Add one egg at a time and continue to beat until the yellow of the egg integrates into the cheese mixture.

Stir in the mango puree.

Pour into the prepared tin.

Place on the middle rack of the oven and bake at 160C for 1 hour and 25 minutes. (All ovens vary, so check after an hour, mine was baked in an hour)

Cool at room temperature until completely cool.

Get your glasses out. It gets a little messy at this stage. Scoop out tiny portions of the cheese cake and fill your glasses until they are half filled. Smoothen the tops and leave the glasses in the fridge for the cheese cake to set.

This should take about 2 hours. (If you are not using all of the cake, put the rest in the fridge and let it set over night, then you could freeze it in an airtight box)

SPONGE

Once the cheesecake is set, cut out discs or small pieces of the sponge. (you could make fresh or buy or use left over) and gently place the pieces of sponge on the cheesecake.

This is a basic sponge recipe for reference, you can use your own recipe.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/882644/basic-sponge-cake

MANGO CREAM

150 ml double cream

75 ml mango puree

Beat the double cream until it reaches stiff peak stage. Gently stir in the mango puree.

Using a piping bag, pipe the mango cream on in to the glasses to cover the sponge and leave it in the fridge. You can do this step with a spoon as well.

Take it out just before serving and drizzle with mango puree and decorate as you wish. You could serve this on its own.

I served it with home-made mango ice cream.

RECIPE FOR MANGO ICE CREAM

This recipe was posted by Azra Noor in Chef at large on Face book. I have made it several times and it is a foolproof recipe. Thank you Azra Noor, your recipe is a keeper!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there you go friends. All components complete! How you present / decorate is left to your discretion. I have given you a basic idea.

A humble request. If you do try it out, please post results and let me know how it turns out.

Notes

In this amount of cheesecake you could make up to 50 glasses I would think.

This would be a good way to use leftover cheesecake as well.

You could use other fruits like strawberries, blueberries or even lemon instead of mangoes.

Picture of the same recipe with a few changes

This time I decided to not to bake the cheesecake and I set it in the glasses directly. It was much simpler and the guests enjoyed it. I always go for a rustic finish as I am not an artist! As long as it delivers on taste, I am happy.