Barely an hour after the clock struck twelve, 2013 saw fit to give me the gift of norovirus. It really was the gift that kept on giving (and giving and giving) and was even less fun than it sounds. Now, having made a full recovery, I'm intending to grab this year with both hands to make up for the ropey start. I've got a new sous-vide to play with (a Christmas present from the lovely Richard Hurst), lots of exciting new recipes to add to my cake repertoire and tomorrow marks the date of the OFFICIAL UK PUBLICATION DATE OF MY BOOK! Amazon may have been sending out copies since October, but now it will be in ACTUAL BOOKSHOPS and everything. You may be able to tell from my liberal use of capital letters, that I'm fairly excited by this. So excited, in fact, that I've put the next hour aside to plan my book launch party. There's no rest for the wicked.
Aside from my party plans, I have also been celebrating no longer having norovirus by making and eating lots of delicious things this week, including this lime and mango mousse-topped lime cake. To make it even more sunshine-y, I served it with passion fruit ice cream, fresh pineapple and passion fruit pulp. It was mighty tasty and perfect dinner party fare.
Happy New Year!
Mango and lime mousse cake
For the cake
Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan) and line a roulade tin with baking parchment and oil 6 ring moulds
3 large eggs, separated
100g caster sugar
25g butter, melted
The zest of 2 limes
100g plain flour (you can substitute this for rice flour to make it gluten free)
Place the eggs and sugar in a heatproof bowl suspended over a pan of barely simmering water and whisk (with an electric whisk if you have one, to save arm power) until the mixture is hot. Remove the bowl from the heat and continue to whisk for a good 5 minutes or until the mixture has doubled in volume and is thick, pale and mousse-like. Whisk in the melted butter before sifting over the flour and folding it in. Fold in the lime zest and pour the mixture into your prepared tin and bake for 15-20 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Once cool, line a small tray with baking parchment and use the ring moulds to cut out a disc of cake and transfer on to your tray. Gently press the cake to ensure each disc is properly pushed into the base of each ring.
For the mousse
1 ripe mango, peeled, stoned and blitzed in a blender
2 large eggs, separated
175ml double cream
The juice of 2 limes
2 leaves of gelatine, softened in cold water for 10 minutes.
Place the egg yolks and sugar in a heatproof bowl and whisk together until thick and pale. In the meantime, pop the cream in a pan and heat until it just boils. Pour the cream over the eggs and whisk in, before transferring it back in the pan over a gentle heat. Stir continuously until the custard begins to thicken and then pour into a jug. Stir in the lime juice and mango puree and top the jug with cling film to prevent a skin forming. Leave to cool completely before popping it in the fridge to chill.
Whisk the egg whites and fold through the custard. Squeeze out the excess cold water from the gelatine and melt it with 1 tbsp of boiling water. Stir it into the mousse before filling each mould right to the top. Pop the tray of filled moulds in the fridge to set for 4 hours.
To de-mould, simply flash a blow torch round the edge of each mould before sliding it off. You can use a hairdryer instead if you don't have a blow torch. Grate a little extra lime zest over their tops if you like and tuck in.
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