When dreams come true

[wiseheart]

I've wanted to bake a mango cake ever since I bought the baking cookbook "Backvergnügen wie noch nie", back in the late 1980s (in Vienna). The problem was: there were no mangoes to have here, in the Wild East.

A few decades later there were mangoes, but there were crazy expensive (they still are), and rock hard, so that slicing them the way the recipe required would only be possible with a chainsaw - which I didn't have (still don't).

But then Lidl marched in triumphantly, and in one of their theme weeks (the Asian one) they had canned mango puree and canned mango slices. Crazy expensive, of course, but I decided that I didn't care. This was my chance to bake that dratted mango cake, after three decades of baking, and I was baking it, regardless of the costs.

And this is the result:





In all honesty, I must admit that it was only inspired by the original recipe. They had such a complicated sponge that I knew of previous experience would end up like rubber, so I simply used Grandma's bullet poof recipe with a bit of added cocoa powder - and it turned out great. I also replaced the required lemon curd with simple buttercream, flavoured with vanilla extract, lime juice and some orange zest. For the lemon curd I'd have needed 6 egg yolks, and I refused to throw out the egg whites, considering what eggs cost in these days; besides, my cooked creams always go wrong, and you can't really mess up buttercream... not easily anyway.

The mango cream filling, however, was done according to the recipe. Since I already bought the mangoes pureed, it was very easy - except the anxious waiting for the gelatin to set. It took more than five hours, but it did set in the end, to my enormous relief. The fruit jelly I made for the top was too much for the cake (the amount was meant for a much bigger one), so I used it for two small terrines of fruit salad, containing strawberries, bananas and the leftover mango slices.

I am ridiculously proud of the cake, even if it doesn't have too much to do with the original recipe!


As for the rest of the day, I took down the dried washing, improvised a rather odd lunch from boiled potatoes, cubed ham, one egg and grated cheese, all thrown together in a frying pan. With that, all food rests had been put to good use. And it was rather good, too! We still have some of the leftover soup for tomorrow, where cake will follow. *g*

Crafting-wise I've finished three more teddy keyring back panels - only five more to go. Tomorrow will be hectic, as it is our scheduled day for the cleaning frenzy, plus we are running out of bread, so I might have to hop down to Lidl, at the very least, after the battle has been fought. *sigh*

My antivirus programme runs out today. I hope my neighbour the IT guy will have sorted out his issues tomorrow and I can get the new one. *fingers crossed*

Comments

[manue7a.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you made your baking dream come true and it turned out so pretty as well!

[noadvertising.livejournal.com]

See, bullet- proof recipes are the best! Often its better to compose your own cake with the components you are familiar with!

[meathiel]

Hmmm ... that sounds very good.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

I have messed up buttercream.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

That looks delicious! I must try something similar sometime as we can easily buy ripe mangos in our local shop.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It feels good to have made something that doesn't fall into the "yummy but ugly" category. *g*

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yes, that has been my experience, too.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

It is very yummy, even though the buttercream is a tad too sweet for my taste.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Me, too. But it's still easier than making lemon curd. And cheaper, too.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I can give you the recipe if you want it. Well, you probably won't need it as making a sponge with chocolate/cocoa isn't nuclear science, and I'm fairly sure that — unlike me — you can make lemon curd. The mango cream was just pureed mangoes, orange and lemon juice, gelatin and a tiny bit of icing sugar.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

I've never tried to make lemon curd. When I want lemon curd I just go to the store and buy the nice jars of lemon curd from England.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

We don't get such things over here. Perhaps in some very special shops, the existence of which are unknown to me, but not in the regular shops.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I have a jar of very nice lemon curd in the fridge :) So was the lemon curd to sandwich the 2 layers of cake together?

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

No, that was the mango jelly. The lemon curd should have come upon and all over the cake, but I replaced it with buttercream.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hmm — I think I would stir a couple of spoonfuls of lemon curd into buttercream and go with that.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

That should definitely work better than my pitiful attempts with lime juice. ;))

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

Woot! Go you!

[red-day-dawning.livejournal.com]

It looks delicious! I love mango.

[elwenlj.livejournal.com]

The cake looks and sounds delicious. I love your attitude to recipes. It's rather like the Pirate's Code, "More what you might call a set of guidelines."

[mirasaui.livejournal.com]

The cake looks gorgeous!