Jihvā For Mangoes - Mango Cake

Within a few hours after Indira told that she was going to host this event, I was squeezing my brain for an innovative recipe - What to do with mango - jam? chutney? Salsa ? Flan ?? Yes -Flan it is - Mango flan. Yahoooo !!!!

Even before checking out the recipe for mango flan I popped an email to Indira. "I am doing mango flan !!!!"

Indira, nice enough, congratulated me on the idea and sent me a link to Ginis' blogsite (Great detail, Gini!) where she had all these detailed instructions to do Flan. But flan is a fat-heavy dessert.

4 egg yolks ???? 2 whole eggs ??? evaporated milk ??? - Nothing wrong with the ingredients, but it would defeat my "try-my-best-low-fat-cooking", which was the basis of me starting this blog.

So next I went into googling for low-fat mango flan.. I found one which did not use a single egg, no milk and almost virtually fat free. So how DID the flan then become a flan ??? I compared the ingredients and procedure and found that it used gelatin to get the consistency. Gelatin ?? Flan ?? Something did not ring right - Oh is that mango jelly with buttermilk and caramel coating ???

Well, that is NO flan. Almost all low fat flans were the same. So my plans to do a low-fat mango flan failed miserably. Sorry Indira !! The days that followed I spoke to myself and googled most of the time (There were days when I went straight from the bed to googling mango recipes) to get a "Mango recipe". I found a lot of dessert-recipes but most of it was high in fat. I even thought of giving up and sending a link to the Mango pachadi I had blogged earlier.

Then the thought of apple crumble came across and from there I got the thread to do mango crumble cake. But I have not done any cake in my life except one betty crocker readymade cake-mix for Ravi's birthday. I became tense in measuring, did all the math I could, followed the recipe by keeping the laptop on the kitchen counter ( who has the time to take printout out eh? )and waited impatiently for the cake to come out.

Why can't I see it while its baking ?? Well, as it goes you can. So I did. I did cheat by peeking in twice. And finally after 30 minutes, the cake came out !! VOILA !! Perfect !!! So thanks to the "Maneka Nirmal", this recipe turned out great. I have adjusted the recipe so that its low-fat.

And here you go. Mango Cake - My Entry to the First JFI [Drumsroll please]


Ingredients
- Allpurpose flour(Maida) - 1 cup
- Baking soda - 1 tsp
- Salt - 3/4 tsp
- Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp
- Egg whites - 2
- Veg oil - 1/4 cup
- Sugar - 3/4 cup
- Golden raisins - 1/2 cup
- Mango(diced) - 1 cup

1. Mix all the dry ingredients viz., flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon powder.
2. Add the wet ingredients - egg whites, oil and ofcourse mangoes and raisins.
3. Mix until all the ingredients are nicely incorporated. The batter will be initially tight. As the sugar melts it will loosen up to the consistency of rice pudding.
4. Pour into a cake pan. And pat it against the counter top or board to release the air bubbles. Let it sit for 20 mins so that the sugar will loosen up the batter.
5. Bake for 30 minutes. And allow it to cool.


Optional Topping

Add sugar, diced mango pieces with little water and heat it for a few minutes until it becomes glossy. Pour over the cake.

Tips:
If I were to do the cake again, which I will, these are the changes I would do.
1) Add two cups of mango instead of just 1 cup.
2) I would love for the mango flavour to be more dominating - good mangoes make a difference. Mango flavour would be great addition. But is it available in the market ??

Ravi had a second helping of the cake, which is pretty unusual. So there it goes the cake was a great success !!!