Let’s tart with mangoes

I must have been four when I started helping my mother blend the batter for cakes she used to bake. She always used to bake my birthday cakes which are some of the best memories of my life.

Those cakes definitely inspired me to take up baking more seriously. I remember making my first chocolate cake when I was seven years old. I made a circular cake and them a placed a cone on top of it and named it a ‘Joker cake’. I continued baking.

While I was in college, a neighbour came home and asked me if I could bake her a pink cake. I used to bake occasionally till then and I agreed instantly. After I baked the cake, I posted the photograph on Instagram and from then I started getting orders. I went into baking full-fledged after this.

I am a huge fan of the MasterChef shows and Ultimate Cake Off and I would always wonder why I couldn’t make such amazing creations. I wanted to go beyond one-tier cakes.

I love the whole idea of baking, eating and the smell of bread. While I started off with cinnamon rolls and pizzas, I slowly progressed to flatbread and to baguettes and bread loaves.

Innovation is the key to baking and this is what inspires me to experiment with flavours. I was surfing through the options of cheese available at a retail format, when I saw mascarpone on the list and thought of making a cheesecake or tart. Mango is in the season and that’s how I came about the idea of the ‘Mango mascarpone tart’.

Hope you enjoy each bite of the tart.

Ingredients:

*Mascarpone (also can use cream cheese or hung curd) - 400 gm
*Sugar - 50 gm
*Whipping cream - 100 gm
*Ripe mangoes - 2-3
*Digestive biscuits - 7-8
*Salted butter - 75gm
*Mango - 1 full
*Blueberry jam/compote for decoration

Method

*Add the mascarpone, mango pulp, sugar, whipping cream into a bowl.
*Mix till the batter is smooth and creamy.
*In another bowl, melt the butter.
*Take the digestive biscuits and grind them till it has a smooth powdery consistency.
*Add the melted butter to the grounded biscuits and press them down into the baking pan.
*Bake this biscuit base for 10 mins at 200°C.
*Cool the biscuit base after baking it.
*Once the biscuit base is cool, add the mango-mascarpone batter into the cake pan.
*Add blueberry jam/compote on top of this mix for additional flavour and decoration. (This is optional)
*Leave the dish in the refrigerator overnight.
*Serve next day with pieces of mango on the tart and some mint leaves.

Nivedita Ghosh
(The author can be contacted on [e-mail])