Imperial - Mango Mousse Cake Now Available!

It’s Finally Here!

My mango mousse cake is finally here and ready to eat! This one was a tough cake to make as the science behind all the ingredients really got to me and it took me a lot of variations and tweaks to get it right and a version that I am happy with!

The cake has a minimum of 600g of real mango and no artificial mango flavours used! This was very important to me as all the mango powders, syrups, concentrates, and oils gave off that fake mango taste and I couldn’t have that.

So what is it? The cake consists of Mango mousse, vanilla sponge cake with a layer of sweet, mango puree with mango fruit pieces. Finished off in a gradient orange, white chocolate velvet-textured ganache.

A halal variant can be made as well.

Why Mango?

Mango is one of my favourite fruits and you can check out my other favourites here ‘Dante’s Top 5 Mousse Cake Flavours’. It’s just natural I make a mango mousse cake for people to enjoy, furthermore, mango and cream is a classic combination and I have never heard anyone that doesn’t like mango!

(Also read this: Valentine’s Day Mousse Cake 2022)

The Challenges: Creating the Cake

Gelatin and mango are not friends

• Mango has naturally occurring proteases (known as enzymes) that break down chemical bonds in protein, thus it will break down the collagen in gelatin. In order for the gelatin to be set with the mango, it needs to be cooked

Strong mango taste

• I wanted a strong mango flavoured mousse, this was challenging as any flavour that is mixed with milk and cream will dilute the flavour. All the recipes I have made from other bakers, it was not up to my standard on how strong the mango flavour came through. It seems whatever recipe or ratio I tried, I couldn’t get the mango to be potent, though I have tested the limits and found a ratio of milk, cream and mango that had the mango flavour come out more than other recipes I have tried.

Not freezer friendly but fridge friendly

• Another huge problem occurred in the process, mango does not like to be frozen as a mousse. While making mango mousse and setting it in the fridge is no problem. As I need to place the mousse in a mould and place it in the freezer at -25 or lower degrees Celcius, this caused a huge problem, the ingredients break down.

• When thawed, the ice crystals from the mango and milk separate and break down the mousse causing the mousse to have a grainy texture that is not smooth to eat. To overcome this, I needed to add ingredients that didn’t break down in the mousse, such as white chocolate.

While these are some of the challenges I faced, my mango mousse cake was one of the toughest cakes I have ever made, lasting over a few months with many tweaks, trial and errors. The cake got a thumbs up from multiple taste testing participants and I will continue to strive and upgrade any cake I make.

- Dante