No-Bake Mango Lime Cheesecake

 

To kick off the summer season (and the opening of his backyard swimming pool) my brother hosted a Memorial Day weekend barbecue for the family.  We normally divide and conquer when it comes to the menu and I was tasked with bringing dessert, comme d'habitude.  I wanted to make something light and fruity that didn't require too much effort.  Enter this No-Bake Mango Lime Cheesecake, which I'd initially seen on the NY Times Cooking Instagram account and immediately saved.  

 

 

Cheesecake itself can be quite heavy, especially the New York variety, but thankfully this one isn't since there are no eggs in the recipe.  The mango flavor comes from the use of canned, unsweetened purée, an ingredient not normally found in my pantry, but I was able to easily source some from Amazon.  I've heard you can also find it at Indian supermarkets. The citrus tones coming from the fresh lime juice and lime zest compliments the mango and cream cheese flavors beautifully.

 

The original recipe calls for a no-bake graham cracker crust but I decided to swap that out for one that you bake since I prefer a toasty texture instead.  Gelatin is used to set up the filling and glaze which makes it really nice to slice.  Often times I've found that when you use mangoes in desserts the fruit flavor gets lost in the shuffle; not with this cheesecake.  Since it wasn't baked the refreshing, tropical fruit flavor stays intact.   Really delicious!

Mango Mousse Cake

My friends recently commissioned a cake to celebrate their son's graduation from MBA school.  When I asked what kind, they responded, "something with mango."  The first thing I thought of was a light and refreshing Mango Mousse Cake.  The profile I was after was something that had intense fruit flavor without being overly sweet and a mousse cake fits the bill perfectly.

I searched the internet for inspiration but to be honest none of the cakes I saw particularly captured my fancy. In the end I went the Frankenstein route for my mango mousse cake, i.e., I took components of different recipes to come up with my creation.   I'm pretty thrilled with the results!

Here's the recipes I used:

Vanilla Chiffon Cake
Mango Mousse Filling
Ladyfingers
Mango Gel Topping

Now I'm inspired to use other fruits to make mousse cakes.  I'm thinking raspberry for next time.  Plus I also want to try my hand at wrapping the cake in a joconde imprime, an almond flavored sponge with a piped design.  Or maybe I'll finally get around to attempting a mirror glaze cake.

Pineapple Coconut Upside-Down Cake

One behavior that I'm trying to consciously change amidst the COVID-19 crisis is to be less wasteful.  Now more than ever it seems that resourcefulness is critical because ingredients aren't necessarily as readily available as they were before.

I'm actually enjoying the process of reinventing foods that I previously would have tossed.   It's almost like a game for me - how creative can I be with leftovers?  I had some pineapple chunks that were on its last legs and an open carton of buttermilk which is how how I found myself making this Pineapple Coconut Upside-Down Cake.  I don't often make pineapple upside-down but when I do I'm always reminded of my Dad.  It's his favorite cake.

The recipe comes directly from epicurious.com which I tweaked only slightly by adding some sweetened coconut to the party.  There's no need to bust out your stand mixer for this cake.  It easily came together using a hand mixer.  The trick is to make sure your ingredients are at room temperature.

Buttermilk is the star ingredient in this recipe because the baked cake came out so light, fluffy and tender. Some upside-down cakes err on the side of too sugary in my opinion, but I found this one to be just right.  A dollop of lightly sweetened crème fraîche and this dessert could want for nothing.  In fact, I helped myself to two slices! 

Piña Colada Cake

When I was a kid my favorite ice cream flavor of all time was Thrifty's Coconut Pineapple.  Truth be told it's still my number one, even in adulthood.  I'd been meaning to make a cake version of this ice cream flavor and I finally got around to it after being inspired by Baking With Blondie's Mango Coconut cake.  Swap out the mango for pineapple and I present to you my Piña Colada Cake. 

 

I used Baking with Blondie's coconut cake recipe and Cook's Illustrated recipes for the pineapple filling and coconut buttercream frosting.  The cake recipe actually uses a Duncan Hines cake mix as its base.  Yes, this is a bit controversial in a world of "from scratch" baking but one that I welcome to be honest.  I grew up eating cakes made from a mix so this brings back a lot of nostalgia for me.   There's nothing wrong with taking shortcuts if it doesn't compromise the taste.

For the filling it was important that it contain fresh pineapple and was sturdy enough to hold up between the cake layers.   Ground instant tapioca did the job of thickening the pureed pineapple while still retaining it's fresh fruit flavor.   As for the frosting I went for an American buttercream which is easier to pull together than Swiss meringue, my normal go to.  To finish the cake off I had to recreate these amazing buttercream pineapples I saw from @makefabulouscakes...are they not the cutest things you've ever seen?

When I had a taste of the finished cake I was blown away by how delicious it was.  The tender coconut infused cake with the fresh pineapple filling is a taste home run!  I will definitely be making this cake again.

Tartine's Passion Fruit and Lime Bavarian Cake

Tartine Bakery's fame extends not only within San Francisco but other parts near and far.  They received a James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef in 2008 which is like an Academy Award in the culinary world.  So it was extremely gratifying for me when I was able to replicate, at home, one of their most popular cakes.  

I had my first taste of the Passion Fruit and Lime Bavarian a few weekends ago with my sister.  Yes, there was a line when we got there - as there always is - but in the end waiting for 30 minutes was so worth it.  One bite of the moist chiffon cake filled with tart passion fruit bavarian cream, covered with lightly sweetened whipped cream and coconut shavings and I was hooked.   I had to try and make it for myself and lucky for me Tartine included the recipe in their eponymous  cookbook.

 The cake was perfect to bring to a family gathering to celebrate my Mom's birthday.  As I've mentioned before my people don't care for overly sweet desserts so I thought this cake was the ideal choice.   Boy was I right.  My family loved the cake, although one of my brothers said it was too tart - hmmm, there's always one dissenter in any big family...lol.   My sister commented that the cake tasted exactly like the one we bought at Tartine, surely confirmation that this recipe was a winner!

While the ingredient list and instructions may seem long the actual creation of this dessert was pretty straight forward.  Make the chiffon and passion fruit filling, assemble the layers and frost.  I spread the process over several days to make it more manageable.  In the recipe you end up with an extra layer of chiffon so I made little parfait versions of the cake in glass Weck canning jars.  I'd seen desserts presented like this at my favorite restaurant, ad hoc, and thought it was such a great idea.  

Stay tuned to this blog as I'm sure I'll be creating more fabulous treats from Tartine!

Under the Sea Sugar Cookies

 

I'm not much of a fan of snorkeling which is ironic because I love to swim, especially in the ocean.  I've gone a couple of times in Hawaii and the first few minutes were great, then came the onslaught of hyperventilation and after that it was game over.

My niece was hosting a Nemo birthday party for her daughter and asked if I could make the cookie favors.  In my imagination these Under the Sea cookie creatures are what I may have come across had I managed to stay under water longer than ten minutes.  Don't the cookies' vibrant colors just scream the tropics and crystal clear waters? Yeah, I know they aren't necessarily anatomically correct but these are just cookies, people!