Mango Semolina Cake

The Mango Semolina Cake has been doing the rounds of social media for quite a while. And since the mango season was upon us I decided to make one too. The semolina basically absorbs up the mango puree and the grains become soft. After you bake it the texture remains a bit sticky but then the texture always changes depending on whether you are using all purpose flour or whole wheat flour or in this case semolina. The cake turned out quite interesting. Definitely something I would bake again.


Ingredients

1 cup semolina
2 mangoes, skinned and pureed
¼ cup oil
½ tsp baking powder
¼ cup+1 tbsp sugar ( the mangoes add to the sweetness)
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees. Mix together the semolina, sugar and baking powder. Now add the oil and mix. Add the mango puree and mix well. Let it sit for half an hour so that the semolina soaks in the mango. Now pour into a greased loaf tin and bake for 20-25 minutes.

No Bake Mango Cheesecake

No Bake Mango Cheesecake

I had kilos of these ripe yet sour mangoes lying around. The king of fruits was not measuring up to my expectations. What to do with them? 

Tried making mango milkshake but had to add so much sugar to make it sweet and palatable. 

A good way to utilize all these mangoes was to make a cheesecake. The colour and aroma was great but I had to sweeten it out and so I used sugar and milkmaid. To make it creamier I added some fresh cream. Add some gelatine and Voila!! Your no bake cheesecake is ready. It takes a few minutes to assemble but it takes about 6 hours to set. 

Whenever I make some dessert I prefer making it a day prior and so the cheesecake gets adequate time to set properly.

Ingredients

5 mangoes, pureed

1 tin milkmaid

2 cups Amul fresh cream

3 tbsp gelatine

1 cup sugar ( I had to add sugar as my mangoes were very sour and adding milkmaid did not cut the sourness. Please adjust the sugar according to the taste of mangoes you are using)

For the base

3 packets glucose biscuits

5 tbsp cold butter, cut into bits

First grease a springform tin with some butter.

Take ½ cup water and sprinkle the gelatine over it. Keep aside.

Crush the biscuits in a mixer. Add the butter bits and start mixing with your hands. The biscuit mix should start getting together. 

Now spread it on the springform pan pressing down with your fingers. Try to keep the while base at an even thickness. Scrape away with a spoon wherever you feel it has become too thick. Keep in the fridge for a few minutes.

Blend together mango puree, milkmaid, fresh cream and sugar. Adjust the sweetness. The gelatine would have soaked all the water. Heat it lightly and let it turn into a colourless liquid. Add to the mango mix. Spread on the biscuit base and keep in the fridge to set. Garnish with chopped mangoes.

Eggless Mango Custard Flan

Eggless Mango Custard Flan

Custard ideally means a combination of eggs and milk. However for those who do not eat eggs a variation can be made. There is a big difference in cooking when you omit the eggs. Also eggs give stability and volume to the flan. However the eggless one turned out pretty well. It had a wobbly feel and it is better to refrigerate it before unmolding. Since I was experimenting I used very less quantities. However I made sure the measurements were such that they can easily be doubled or tripled. This produced one large flan (or two small ones)

Ingredients

½ cup hung curd

½ milkmaid

½ cup mango puree

½ cup fresh cream

3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cornflour

Whisk all together to a smooth mixture.

For the caramel

½ cup sugar

2 tbsp water

Put the sugar and water on medium heat and wait for it to brown. Once it caramelizes take off the heat and add 1 tbsp water. Take care while adding the water to the hot caramel because it will start sizzling. Mix the water well. Pour the caramel in the mould and swirl around a bit. Now pour the mango mixture.

Prepare a water bath.

Preheat the oven at 170 degree Celsius.

Put the mould in the water bath and bake for about 50 minutes. Since there is no egg here the flan will be a bit wobbly. 

Cool it on a rack and then put in the fridge for half an hour. It will unmould easily now.

Mango Shreekhand

Mango Shreekhand

And the mango mania continues. Mango and curd – two awesome combinations..one to welcome the summer and the other to beat the heat. The tanginess of the curd with the sweetness of the mango .

Ingredients

2 cups hung curd

4 mangoes, pureed

1 cup castor sugar ( you can add or lessen as per your taste)

1 tsp green cardamom powder

Wrap the curd in a muslin cloth and hang it for 3-4 hours so that the water drips out. Now blend all the ingredients well with a hand blender. 

Chill and enjoy. 

Fresh mango bread

Fresh mango bread

Mangoes are in season and there are so many things you can do with it. They are very versatile and can add variety to a number of dishes, both sweet and savory. Unripe green mangoes can be made into pickles and added to chicken and mutton. Ripe ones can be used in a variety of desserts. 

But what do you do once you have made cheesecake, pudding, shreekhand, ice cream etc etc…You make Fresh Mango Bread.

I found the idea of making sweet bread intriguing. These are more like loaf cakes than breads and are a good way of using up those extra mangoes.

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups flour

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup castor suagr

½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp cinnamon powder

2 small eggs

½ cup oil

1 cup diced ripe mangoes

1.2 cup raisins

Preheat the oven at 175 degrees Celsius.

Grease and line a loaf tin with parchment paper.

Sieve together flour, cinnamon powder, baking powder and baking soda. Add the castor suagr and brown suagr. Mix with your hands so that the brown suagr mixes well and no lumps remain.

Beat together oil and eggs. 

Add the dry ingredients. Mix well with a spatula. The mix will be more like stiff dough than a batter.

Add the mangoes and raisins.

Pour the dough into the loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes. 

Mango Shreekhand

Mango Shreekhand

And the mango mania continues. Mango and curd – two awesome combinations..one to welcome the summer and the other to beat the heat. The tanginess of the curd with the sweetness of the mango .

Ingredients

2 cups hung curd

4 mangoes, puréed

1 cup castor sugar ( you can add or lessen as per your taste)

1 tsp green cardamom powder

Wrap the curd in a muslin cloth and hang it for 3-4 hours so that the water drips out. 

Purée the mangoes. 

Now blend all the ingredients well with a hand blender. Chill and enjoy. 

Mango Cheesecake Pudding

Mango Cheesecake Pudding

I have always had a fascination for Cheesecake. The delicate soft texture is just out of this world. But I never could think of making one because I could never lay my hands on a tub of cream cheese. That is the disadvantage of being posted to a very small town.

Thanks to the group Chefs at Large I came across some great chefs who were very generous in giving tips about how to go about making cream cheese at home. Tried it out and was very happy with the results. That, however, is another thread as I will also upload how to make cream cheese at home.

I decided to start with a bang and planned on making cheesecake for an important party at home. The only hitch was that there were a large number of guests and I felt if I made a traditional cheesecake cutting it into so many slices would become a problem. So I decided to make a Mango Cheesecake Pudding with individual servings in a bowl.

One other thing I changed in the recipe was use of different ingredients. The recipe called for a combination of cream cheese and milkmaid. Cream cheese is to be made with about 2 liters of Amul cream. I opted for a healthier version and used a combination of hung curd, homemade cottage cheese/paneer and a little bit of homemade cream cheese.

The list of ingredients might not sound too precise because I kept improvising throughout..:)

Ingredients

200 ml Amul cream

2 tbsp vinegar

Curd made from 1 liter of milk

Paneer made from 1 ½ liter of milk

5 mangoes, pureed

½ cup castor sugar ( I had to use this because my mangoes were not sweet )

First make the cream cheese. Mix together Amul cream and vinegar. Let stand at room temperature overnight. Then put in a muslin cloth to drain the liquid. This has to be done in the fridge overnight.

Similarly make the paneer and curd and leave it to drain for a few hours.

Now churn all three , i.e., paneer, hung curd and cream cheese in the mixer. Add the pureed mangoes and castor sugar. The mixture will be quite thick. Pour the mango mix into individual serving bowls and keep in the fridge overnight.

To make the mango glaze

2 mangoes, pureed

1.5 tbsp gelatin

Sprinkle the gelatin over ¼ cup water. Let it stand

Heat a pan and cook the pureed mango till the raw smell goes. Cool it.

Heat the gelatin mixture till it becomes a transparent liquid. Add to the mango puree.  

Pour the mango glaze over the cheesecake mix. Garnish with chopped mango and mint leaves.