About a month or so ago, I visited an American-style restaurant called the Fat Bear here in London. (You can read about my visit here 👉 https://tangosbaking.home.blog/2019/06/15/journey-across-the-waters/) I tried their delicious biscuits and gravy, and ever since then, I had always wanted to try to replicate this classic American dish.
Yesterday, I was feeling peckish in the middle of the night. I suddenly had this idea of making some biscuits and gravy to fill this hunger. So, I quickly leapt down to the supermarket (the closet one to me had closed already so I had to walk slightly further), and came back to attempt to make this dish for the first time ever. I followed a recipe by the Hairy Bikers (Link: https://goodfood.uktv.co.uk/recipe/biscuits-and-sausage-gravy/), though I just went all freestyle with the sausage gravy using some good-quality caramelised onion sausages, double cream (that was left from when I made my Oreo cake a few days) and some mixed spices. I also didn’t have any buttermilk, so I made my own using lemon juice and milk by following tips on this article 👉 https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/how-to-make-buttermilk/.
I wasn’t entirely sure how the biscuit dough should be like, but I felt it was wetter than it should be, so I did end up adding a bit more flour. I felt the biscuits did come out slightly denser than I would like it, but the sausage gravy was absolutely delicious! 😋 (Though it eventually did feel quite heavy as I kept on eating it after… 😅)
Have you made biscuits and gravy before? Do you have any tips you would like to share? Let me know in the comments below. 😉
I am always very intrigued by fusion cuisines. Being an Asian that grew up in Britain, I often found myself being inspired by the cooking on both sides. Even when I was baking, I often found an urge of being drawn to using Asian ingredients.
A couple of weeks ago, I made some deliciously classic chocolate profiteroles for a BBQ. (The link to that is here 👉 https://tangosbaking.home.blog/2019/07/06/barbecue-and-strawberries-🍓/) But do you know that choux pastry is also often used for savoury recipes, especially in canapés? A while ago, I created these bite-size treats of Japanese nori choux buns with tuna tartare and avocado. I can tell you that savoury is just as good as sweet! So why don’t you give it a try too? 😉
Japanese Nori Choux Buns with Tuna Tartare and Avocado
Quantity: 15-20 choux buns
Ingredients:
For the choux pastry:
50g unsalted butter
150ml water
65g strong white flour
2 large eggs, beaten
1 large sheet of sushi nori
For the filling:
200g fresh sashimi tuna, diced
2 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise
1 large avocado, slightly mashed
1 lemon, juice only
Chives, diced finely
A pinch of salt
Method:
1. Place the butter in the water in a saucepan. Heat until the butter has completely melted and the water is boiling.
2. Keep the saucepan over heat and tip in the flour in one go. Beat vigorously until a smooth dough is formed. Remove it from heat.
3. Add the beaten eggs a bit at a time, stirring vigorously after each addition, until you have a smooth, soft batter. Take care as you may not need all the eggs. The batter should not be too stiff or too runny. You can check if you have the right consistency by lifting a bit of the batter up with a spoon, and it should just hang off it, holding a V-shape.
4. Chop up the nori finely. (Make sure you save some for decorations.) Add the nori to the choux batter and mix until well-combined.
5. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas 6.
6. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Sprinkle droplets of water over it. Pipe the choux batter onto it in small circles, leaving enough room between them for the choux to rise. Cut the remaining nori to thin stripes, and place them in a cross pattern on top of the choux.
7. Bake the choux for about 25-30 minutes, or until they are golden and fully cooked inside. As soon as they are taken out to cool, use a sharp knife to slice them across in halves. Cool the choux on a wire rack.
8. While the choux are baking, prepare the filling. Add the chives and half the lemon juice to the mashed avocado. Season with salt and mix. For the tuna tartare, add the remaining lemon juice and mayonnaise to the raw tuna. Mix and season with salt.
9. Once the choux is cooled, fill the choux buns with the tuna tartare and avocado before serving.
I would not be surprised if you tell me that Oreo played an important role in your childhood. I used to wake up to adverts of Oreos in the morning, and like a typical child begged my mum to get some for me. 😂 There is more to this beloved treat than dunking it in the milk though as it is quite a widely used ingredient in baking and desserts.
This week, I received a request to bake an Oreo cake for one of my local charities. I also got to use the silver food colouring spray I bought from L’atelier des Chefs in Paris a few days ago, and created this metallic Oreo cake.😉 This cake was composed of Oreo-incorporated vanilla sponges covered with an Oreo buttercream and a chocolate ganache. Hope you enjoy! 😊
Metallic Oreo Cake
Quantity: 1 cake
Ingredients:
For the sponge:
4 eggs, separated into whites and yolks
64g caster sugar
48g flavourless oil
56g warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract
80g self-raising flour
20g corn starch
154g (1 packet) Oreos , crushed coarsely
For the buttercream:
295g unsalted butter, softened
520g icing sugar
52g double cream
1 tsp salt
154g (1 packet) Oreos, crushed finely
For the chocolate ganache:
125g dark chocolate
70g double cream
For decorations:
Oreos, whole
Silver food colouring spray
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/356F/gas 4.
2. To prepare the sponge, start by whisking the egg whites in a large bowl using an electric whisk with half of the caster sugar until soft peaks are formed. Be careful not to overwhip the egg whites.
3. In a large bowl, mix the yolks with the oil, water, vanilla extract and the remaining sugar together until smooth. Sieve in the flours until mix until well-combined.
4. Fold half of the whisked egg whites into the yolk mixture. Then, pour the mixture into the remaining egg whites and fold until they are evenly combined.
5. Fold in the coarsely crushed Oreos into the sponge batter until well-combined.
6. Pour the cake mixture into a greased cake tin. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
7. Cool the cake briefly in the tin before demoulding to cool on a wire rack.
8. To make the buttercream, use an electric whisk to beat the softened butter until smooth. Add in the icing sugar, double cream and salt, and whisk until well-combined. Save a small portion of the plain buttercream for decorations before folding in the finely crushed Oreos.
9. Assemble the cake by carefully slicing the sponges into two even layers. Cover and sandwich the sponge with the buttercream. Chill the cake in the fridge for the buttercream to firm up slightly.
10. To make the chocolate ganache, heat the double cream in a saucepan. Break down the chocolates and place them in a bowl. Add the hot cream onto the chocolates and whisk until smooth.
11. Pour the chocolate ganache over the cake. Let it set before spraying the silver food colouring on top.
12. On some parchment, spray the silver food colouring onto the whole Oreos. Pipe the plain buttercream on top of the cake, and place the coloured Oreos over it.
Bonjour from Paris again! The hot weather stepped up to an even greater level today (setting a new record of 39C…!🔥😰😰) Despite an exhausting day yesterday, I still made sure that I headed out early to visit Angelina (near the Louvre) which my best friend suggested was an ideal place for breakfast/brunch. It took me ages to find it as well since somehow I ended up in the wrong part of the road. (I blame my maps app!)
Eggs Benedict
Eggs Benedict is my favourite breakfast dish. The crispy bacon and toasted bread accompanied well with the soft poached eggs and the silky hollandaise sauce. 😋As I was eating it, I was trying not to think about the amount of butter and fat in the dish…😓
Fraisier (hazelnut biscuits with vanilla cream and fresh strawberries) and Douceur abricot-miel (Pistachio biscuit with apricot jelly and honey mousse)
The shop had a large range of patisseries to choose from, but I decided on these two. I absolutely loved the Fraisier! ❤️❤️ The light vanilla cream with the biscuit was such a great combo, and the tangy sweetness of the strawberries cut right through. 🤤 (I actually wanted another one lol!) The Douceur abricot-miel was good but a little on the heavy side for me personally. Though, they both looked stunning! 👍
I also tried their signature chocolate drink. (It was way too hot for hot chocolate, so I went for cold instead. 😂) Rich and velvety, I would say it was definitely one for chocolate lovers. Though for me, it was slightly too dark and bitter… 😅
After being roasted in the heat at the Catacombs yesterday, I decided to take a more indoor approach today. (Quite honestly, I was very sick of the heat by now!) However, I did managed a quick stroll around Tuileries Garden where a carnival was being held. (As to who would want to go on rides under this heat, I had no idea!) The walk didn’t last long at all before I ran into Carrousel du Louvre to avoid the intense heat… 😓🏃♂️🏃♂️ The park would have been nice to visit in fall season.
After a nap in the hotel, I headed to my most anticipated event in my entire trip and that was to attend an amateur cooking class! 👨🍳 So the class I went was run by L’atelier des Chefs (a friend who speaks French recommended this to me) and unfortunately they don’t run any English classes. But when I asked for information yesterday, they said that they do get a lot of tourists attending and most people can follow without even speaking any French, so I decided to give it a try anyway.
Including me, there was a total of ten people in the class (and I was pretty sure that I was the only tourist 😂!) I was the first person to arrive (probably looking a bit too keen haha), and the reception lady was incredibly welcoming to me and said, ‘For this evening, treat this place as your own home and look around however you want!’ (Aww! ☺️) The two-course menu we made were king prawn skewers with fennel salad & mashed potatoes and also an apricot Tarte Tatin. Despite being pretty much muted for the duration of the class (everyone was speaking French, I couldn’t join in the conversations lol…😅), the class was very enjoyable! We cooked the dishes simultaneously so they would be ready to eat at the same time, and we started with preparing Tarte Tatin first. For a baker like me, I was super excited!
Everyone would take turns trying out the individual steps, and we were all so gracious in passing stuff to each other and letting other people had a go. It felt like we were a big family cooking together for a family gathering meal.☺️ (I was like one of those wind up toy repeating ‘merci’ every few minutes. 😂 😂) Though, I felt a little awkward when my ‘perfectionist’ side came out as I was adamant in arranging the apricots in a flower pattern (you can see at the bottom right on the photo) when everyone else was dumping theirs into the mould… 😅
With the Tarte Tatin ready to go in the oven, we started dicing up the potatoes for the savoury course. And to be frank, I was really embarrassed by my appalling knife skills (as my mum would agree…) and the chef had to warn me to be careful with my fingers. 🙈 Here is also a video of the chef demonstrating how to peel and de-vein the prawns. (I know my mum would love to have all the heads we ended up throwing away! 😂)
I hate this mandoline!! 😡😡
I felt quite comfortable with preparing the prawns as it was something I did before. (Really reminded me of Hong Kong where we used to cook the fresh prawns we bought straight from the market. ☺️) The fennel though was a different story…
While I had seen many times of people using a mandoline on TV, I had never used one. 😬 The chef stopped me to show me how to hold the fennel correctly so I didn’t slice off my fingers, and even then I was struggling with it so much that I abandoned using it altogether and used the knife to chop up the fennel. I thought I was doing a decent job until I looked around to see how everyone cut their fennel very thinly and mine were large chunks! 🤦♂️🤦♂️ I tried to trim mine down but they were still nowhere near as thin.😕 (The guy next to me was chopping them up so quickly and skilfully, I literally wanted to find a hole and hide! 🙈) Most of the group then went to the stoves to help with the cooking, and I was still chopping up the fennel! 😂 (I was actually really embarrassed about adding my large pieces of fennel into the bowl…) I guess Julia Child must be shaking her head at me… 😅
With the prawns and mashed potatoes ready, we moved on to plating. (I was like in my head, ‘Yes! Forget stupid knife works, this is something I am good at!’ 😂) I was again being such a neurotic perfectionist, I was the last one to finish plating. 😅 (Literally digging through the bowl to find spinach leaves of similar sizes lol…)
King Prawn Skewers with Fennel Salad and Mashed PotatoesApricot Tarte Tatin
But, finally after all the hard work, it’s tasting time! Bon appetite! 😋 😋 😋
(And after the dinner, I also got a souvenir for myself! 😉)
Finally, my summer holiday has officially begun! And as if my holiday hasn’t come quick enough, I am already packing for my trip to Paris tomorrow. 😉 I have always been very excited to visit the city again since the last time I was there when I was 4 years old, and now at last it’s happening! Hopefully, I will have plenty to share with you guys about it. 😊
One of the things I am most looking forward to now is to see all the amazing pâtissière in Paris, and I am hoping I will learn something more about them while I am there. So, meanwhile, here is a quick throw back to an entremet I did a while ago.
This entremet is composed of a raspberry mousse with a layer of vanilla sponge, sandwiching two layers of jellies, one blackcurrant and one clear strawberry. The entremet is topped with a tempered chocolate flower. For those of you who may have seen the recipe of my mango mousse cake, the recipes for the individual components follow almost the same method. (Here is the link 👉 https://tangosbaking.home.blog/2019/06/29/its-a-long-hot-summer/) To make the raspberry mousse, replace the mango purée in the recipe with a raspberry purée. The vanilla sponge is the same recipe without the desiccated coconut, and the blackcurrant jelly is made using blackcurrant juice. The glaze is made from raspberry purée. This entremet is also moulded using a silicone mould. Also a quick tip– when demoulding, dip the mould quickly in warm water to loosen the mouse up, then you should be able to get a clean finish when removing the entremet from the mould. 😉
Do you have any travel plans in the summer? Let’s share in the comments section! 👍
One of the things that make me so in awe with bread makers is their abilities to create amazingly elaborated breads. To me, unlike cakes, breads are not as easy to decorate and make it look as amazing. (And certainly it’s not my preferred discipline.) Being a big fan of many food and cooking shows (no surprise there 😆), bread plaiting is something I often see being done. Despite that, I was very unconfident in trying to do plaiting for a time though as I felt I was not particularly good at handiwork. (Heck, I struggled to learn to tie shoelaces until I was well into adolescence!)
A while ago, I finally decided to attempt to make a four-strand plaited bread. But even as I was following steps and images from my book on bread making, I was still struggling and confused by the plaiting. 😖 This was until I found a very useful video on YouTube by The Bread Kitchen. See the link here 👉 https://youtu.be/RP6j7esQyjk. By following the demonstration, it was much more straightforward with the plaiting (and thanks to my mum who helped whilst I was making it! 😂)
Humans eat to survive. Is this why you eat though? For me, food is way more than a survival need. My most favourite things about food are the many memories and moments that come with each meal, and the love the cooks can bring to people’s hearts. The reason why I love baking is to be able to similarly share and bring this joy to other people.
Yesterday, my friends and I arranged a surprise dinner for a friend who would be soon moving to a different country. My two friends put together a beautiful album of our memories for her, whilst, being me (the token baker in our group lol), I decided to make a strawberry and cream cake for the occasion.
After a hefty steak dinner, my friends and I ended up munching this cake away whilst sitting by some corner seats inside the shopping mall. (LOL to the restaurant who tried to charge us for bringing our own cake in.) We laughed and talked as we tucked in. Such times like that are ones that are the most beautiful, simple moments in life. And more importantly, whenever I see and taste these foods again, I will always remember the joy and happiness that it was associated with on this very day.
What happy memories are you going to create with food today? 😊
One of my favourite things in the summer is no doubt a smoky barbecue party with friends. Yesterday, my work colleagues were cooking up a meaty feast in the back garden. Chicken, ribs, prawns, sausages, burgers and all could name! 🍗🍖🍤🌭🍔 What possibly can a meat lover like me says no to? 😋 (Even better with a cocktail in my hand haha!)
Since I did not contribute to the grill, I paid my dues by whipping up (quite literally) a dessert for everyone there. To keep up with the finger food theme, I decided on some chocolate profiteroles topped with freeze-dried raspberries. To top it off, I also did some chocolate-dipped strawberries. The strawberries at this time are the best around this time in the year. One of the biggest joy I get from baking and cooking is to see the joy you bring to others with the food you’ve made. So, very happy that my colleagues enjoyed it! 😊
Chocolate Profiteroles with Freeze-dried Raspberries and Chocolate-dipped Strawberries
Quantity: 15-20 profiteroles
Ingredients:
For the choux pastry:
50g unsalted butter
150ml water
65g strong white flour
30g caster sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
For the pastry cream:
4 egg yolks
65g caster sugar
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp cornflour
350ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Decorations:
200g strawberries
300g dark chocolate
50g white chocolate
Freeze-dried raspberries
Method:
1. Start the choux pastry by placing the butter in water in a saucepan. Heat until the butter has fully melted, bringing the water to boil.
2. Keeping the saucepan over heat, tip all the flour into it in one go. Beat vigorously until it forms a smooth dough. Remove it from heat afterwards.
3. Add the beaten eggs a bit at a time to the dough, stirring vigorously after each addition, to achieve a soft, smooth batter. Take care at this stage as you may not need all your eggs. The batter must not be too runny or too stiff. To check that you have the right consistency, lift a bit of the batter up with a spoon. It should just hang off the spoon, holding a V-shape.
4. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas 6.
5. Line the baking tray with baking parchment. Sprinkle droplets of water over it. (This creates steam to give a crisp crust on your profiteroles.) Pipe your choux batter in small circles, leaving enough gap between them as the choux will rise considerably.
6. Bake the profiteroles for about 25-30 minutes, or until they are golden and fully cooked inside. As soon as they are taken out to cool, use a skewer to pierce the bottoms of each profiteroles to create an air hole to let out steam, and place them on a wire rack.
7. While the profiteroles are baking, make the pastry cream by whisking the egg yolks together with the sugar until a pale yellow is achieved. Sieve the flour and mix it into the yolk mixture until well-combined.
8. Heat the milk with the vanilla in a saucepan over a low heat until there is a gentle simmer.
9. Slowly pour about half of the hot milk to the yolk mixture, whisking as you are adding. Then return the mixture to the remaining milk in the saucepan.
10. Bring the mixture back to boil by heating, whisking continuously as it is cooking, until a smooth custard is formed.
11. Line a tray with cling film, and pour the pastry cream on it to cool and set in the fridge. You may dust some icing sugar over to prevent a skin forming.
12. When the profiteroles are cooled and the pastry cream is set, pipe the pastry cream into the profiteroles through the air hole at the bottom. Take care to ensure the profiteroles are well-filled.
13. Melt the chocolates over a double boiler or using a microwave. (Take care with the white chocolate as it is easy to get overheated and turn lumpy.)
14. Dip the filled profiteroles and strawberries in the melted dark chocolate. Allow it to cool and set slightly before drizzling the melted white chocolate over with a spoon. Dust the profiteroles with freeze-dried raspberries.
Who can ever forget cookies🍪 and milk🥛 from the days of your childhood? I used to have so much fun dunking the cookies in the milk (to me that’s the best bit!) It’s funny to think how the smallest thing in the world can make you smile when you were a child, but these excitement and joy seemingly become more rare as one grows older and older.
As a kid, I was able to enjoy every little moments of my life, but nowadays I would just always be constantly thinking and worrying of things I need to do the day after. I missed the days when I used to be able to go home and watch my favourite shows, and escape from the reality. One of my favourite shows to watch back then was Sesame Street and the Cookie Monster often appeared on my screen (Though my favourite was actually Oscar ’cause I loved the fact that he lives in a bin! 😂) Don’t you just wished you can go back to being a kid again?
Turning back time may not be possible, but a dream of cookie and milk is not far from reality. These jam-filled chocolate chips cookies are very simple to make but just as nostalgic as those of your favourites from your childhood. What’s your favourite kind of cookies? Come and try this, and embrace the Cookie Monster inside us all!
Jam-Filled Chocolate Chip Cookies
Quantity: About 6 cookies
Ingredients:
100g plain flour
50g unsalted butter
35g caster sugar
1-2 tbsp milk
Seedless Raspberry Jam
Dark Chocolate Chips
Method:
1. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the caster sugar.
2. Add the milk a bit at a time to bring the dough together. Cover and rest the dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas 5.
4. Roll the dough evenly to a large square. Cut out circles using a cookie cutter. (Alternatively, split the dough into equal portions, then roll and shape.) Ensure you have cut out an even number of circles.
5. Place a teaspoon of jam on one circle of dough and cover with another circle. Repeat this procedure with the remaining dough. Add chocolate chips on top of the cookies.
6. Bake the cookies in the oven for 12-15 minutes, or until golden.
7. Cool the cookies on a wire rack to let them firm up before serving.
The heat wave is finally here in London! ☀️ 🔥 🔥 Now that summer has officially begun, how many of you have planned your holiday already? Whether you’re spending time with friends, families or alone by yourself, summer is an important for one to unwind and enjoy the beauty of nature. For someone who loves exploring new places, you may be surprised to hear that I don’t actually travel abroad an awful lot during the holidays. However, I do dream about lying alone on a beach 🏖🏝 (or next to a hunky companion hehe), staring at the clear water or the bright blue sky, and snoozing under the sun with a cold, tropical drink in my hand…🍹
Meanwhile, I will imitate this tropical feeling at home by making my favourite mango mousse cake. This mango mousse cake is one of my more complicated dessert. Inside the mousses hides a layer of coconut sponge cake and strawberry clear jelly over a buttery digestive biscuit base. The cake is finished with a mango glaze and topped with a tempered chocolate nest filled with coconut white chocolate truffles. It does take a bit of time to make this but it’s well worth the effort!
Tropical Mango Mousse Cake
Quantity: 1 cake
Ingredients:
For the clear strawberry jelly:
5g leaf gelatine
225ml lemonade
5-6 strawberries, chopped
For the digestive biscuit base:
200g digestive biscuit
70g unsalted butter, melted
For the coconut sponge cake:
2 eggs, separated
32g caster sugar
24g flavourless oil
28ml warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g self-raising flour
20g desiccated coconut
For the mango mousse:
11g leaf gelatine
450g mango purée/pulp
50g caster sugar
400ml double cream
For the coconut white chocolate truffles,
100g white chocolate, chopped
30ml double cream
1 tbsp butter
Desiccated coconut
For the tempered chocolate decorations:
300g dark chocolate
For the mango glaze:
56ml water
47g caster sugar
1 lemon, peels only
16g leaf gelatine
175g mango purée/pulp
Other decorations:
Fresh mangoes, chopped
Desiccated coconut
Dark chocolate
White chocolate stars
You will also need at least a small cake tin and a larger cake tin (both should have a loose base) to create the layering effect.
Method:
1. Start the jelly first by soaking the leaf gelatine in cold water. Line the small cake tin with cling film.
2. Bring the lemonade to boil in a saucepan. Squeeze off any excess water from the soaked gelatine and stir it into the saucepan until fully dissolved. Take it off the heat, and add in the strawberries. Pour it into the tin and place it into a fridge for about 2-3 hours to set. Once the jelly is set, remove it from the cake tin with the cling film and continue to chill it in the fridge until use.
3. Prepare the digestive biscuit base by blitzing or grinding down the digestive biscuits to fine crumbs. Mix in the melted butter. Line the bottom of the larger cake tin with a cling film, and spread the biscuit mixture evenly at the base of the cake tin. Chill the biscuit base in the fridge for about 30 minutes so it can firm up.
4. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. For the sponge cake, whisk the egg whites in a large bowl with half of the sugar until stiff.
5. In a different bowl, mix the yolk, oil, water, vanilla extract and the remaining sugar together until smooth. Sieve in the flour and add the desiccated coconut into it, and mix until well-combined. Fold this mixture into the whipped egg whites.
4. Grease the small cake tin and pour in the cake batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove the cake from the mould and cool on a wire rack.
5. To make the mango mousse, soak the leaf gelatine in cold water and whip the double cream to soft peaks.
6. Warm the mango purée/pulp with the sugar in a saucepan. Squeeze excess water off from the gelatine and stir it in until fully dissolved. Pass the purée mixture through the sieve. Pour and fold it into the whipped cream until smooth.
7. To assemble the mousse cake, pour in some of the mousse into the larger cake tin with the digestive biscuit base. Place the coconut sponge at the centre and flip the strawberry jelly on top of the sponge using the cling film. Fill up the sides with the mango mousse (ensure they are completely filled up, or else you will see gaps later on), and pour the remaining mousse on top and spread evenly. Place the mousse cake into the fridge to set for about 4 hours.
8. To make the truffles, place the white chocolate, cream and butter in a bowl and heat it a microwave in 20-seconds intervals until melted. (Take care as white chocolate is easy to get overheated and burnt.) Cover the bowl and chill the chocolate in the fridge until firm. Grease your hand with a bit of oil. Scoop and roll the cooled white chocolate in your hand to shape into balls. Roll the truffle balls in desiccated coconut to cover them.
9. For the tempered chocolate decorations, warm two thirds of the dark chocolate in a double boiler to 45-50C/113-122F until melted. Stir in the remaining chocolate to cool it to 31-32C/87-89F.
10. For the chocolate palm trees, pipe the tempered chocolate into shapes on baking parchment. For the chocolate sticks, cut out a rectangular strip of baking parchment and pipe diagonally across it to create a net effect, then carefully roll the paper into a tube shape and secure with tape. For the chocolate nest, flip a bowl upside down and covered with baking parchment, then similarly pipe the chocolate in a net pattern around the bowl. Leave the chocolate decorations to cool and set in room temperature before removing and use.
11. Once the mousse cake is set, remove it from the cake tin and pull out the cling film underneath. Keep the cake cooled in the fridge while preparing the glaze.
12. To make the mango glaze, first make a syrup by heating the water, sugar and lemon peels in a saucepan for 2-3 minutes. Remove the lemon peels.
13. Soak the leaf gelatine in cold water. Add the mango purée/pulp to the syrup and heat. Squeeze the excess water off the soaked gelatine and stir it in until fully dissolved. Pass the glaze through a sieve and let it cool slightly before use.
14. Place the cake on a wire rack over a tray. Pour the glaze over in a swirl motion to cover the cake evenly. Dust the sides with desiccated coconut.
15. While the glaze is still setting, decorate the cake with fresh mangos, truffles and the chocolate decorations. (Use a knife to cut open a small gap to insert the palm trees into the cake). Move the cake to a stand and keep in the fridge until serving.
Now, excuse me as I continue to stare upon the bright blue sky. 😉
Tango's Baking 