Mango Mousse Cake

Have been thinking about what type of cake can I bake to celebrate my dad's birthday. I realised I have been baking lots of cakes with chocolate as the main ingredient. It's time for a change and explore new ingredients and techniques. Finally settled on a mango mousse cake since it is mango season and I see lots of Thai honey mango around. Bought some of them and they were real sweet. Used up 2 mangoes to make the mango puree and another 2 more to cut into cubes to be added to the mousse layer and as a decoration for the top of the cake.
You would have noticed that I love to use fruits to decorate the cake. Not only do they look beautiful and elegant but also taste good. Strawberries and raspberries are my favourites.
For this cake, I got the idea from All that matters blog (http://allthatmatters2rei.blogspot.com/2009/04/mango-mousse-cake.html). I used my own recipe for the Vanilla Chiffon Sponge cake and the mango mousse recipe from All that matters blog. The mousse layer is a combination of the mango puree, whipped cream and lots of mango cubes; which is sandwiched between two layers of tender soft vanilla chiffon sponge.
While working on the mousse, I actually made a grave mistake of pouring all the gelatine mixture at one go into the mango puree. Do you know what happened? The gelatine started to solidify upon contact with the cold mango puree. Bad move. The correct way is to actually pour the gelatine in a steady stream into room temperature puree while stirring it constantly. Now I know.
Luckily the cake still turned out good inspite of the glitches and everyone enjoyed the cake with no leftovers.

Ingredients:

One 7” x 7” square vanilla sponge cake

Mango Mousse
17g Gelatine Powder
60g Hot Water

350g Whipping Cream
3 Tbsp Icing Sugar

300g Mango Puree (if refrigerated, bring to room temperature)
1Tbsp Rum

200g to 220g Cubed Mango

Mango puree topping:
150g mango puree (bring to room temperature)
1 Tbsp gelatin
4½ Tbsp boiling water

Slice/Cubed fruits *optional

Method:
1) In a mixing bowl, whip whipping cream with icing sugar to mousse state. Refrigerate to chill.
2) In a small bowl, dissolve gelatine powder in hot water. When the gelatine powder is fully dissolved, add to mango puree. Add rum to the mixture. Mix well.
3) Add the mango mixture to whipped cream. Mix well till incorporated.
4) Use a 7 x 7 inch cake ring, place a layer of cake and pour in mango mousse, or use a large piping tip to pipe the mixture. Do take note of the corners. Add mango cubes and cover them with some mousse. Let it set slightly for about 10 minutes in the fridge.
5) Lay another cake layer and pour the remaining mousse. Let it set for 30 to 45 minutes in the fridge.
6) Meanwhile, dissolve gelatine in hot water for mango puree topping. Mix in mango puree. Wait till the mousse is set and the topping is cooled, arrange cubed mangoes on the top layer and pour in the topping carefully. Arrange other fruits like strawberries and blueberries if any. Let the cake chill for at least 3 hours before removing the cake ring. You can decorate the sides with chocolate shavings or curls or toasted sliced almonds if you like.

**Note**
To whip the cream successfully, ensure the mixing bowl and beaters are ice cold and place the bowl over a bigger bowl of iced water. Do not overbeat or the cream will turn into butter.
To remove the cake ring, you can use a hair dryer to heat up the sides gently for easy & clean removal.