Mango fool
Ripples of orange through plain whipped cream
Doubles easily into four glasses. Best eaten within a few hours of making, since the ripple softens and bleeds into the cream if it sits overnight.
A fool asks for almost no skill, only ripe fruit and the discipline not to stir it in completely. Mango flesh blended and pushed through a sieve gives a purée with a colour few other fruits manage on this diet, a bright, saturated orange that survives being folded through cream far better than it has any right to. Fold it only two or three times and streaks of that orange run through the pale cream rather than turning the whole bowl a uniform peach, which is both the better texture and the better thing to look at. A few spoonfuls of smooth yoghurt folded in first keep the whole thing lighter than cream on its own, and cuts a little of the sweetness a very ripe mango brings with it.
Ingredients
Contains: Milk
- 1large ripe mango, about 450 g, peeled, flesh cut from the stone, blended and pushed through a fine sieve, all fibre discarded
- 200 mldouble cream
- 100 gsmooth natural yoghurt
Method
Peel the mango and cut the flesh away from the stone. Blend until smooth, then push the purée through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing well with the back of a spoon and throwing away the fibre left in the mesh. You should end up with a bright orange purée, about 250 ml.
Whip the cream to soft peaks, floppy rather than stiff.
Fold the yoghurt through the cream gently until just combined.
Add most of the mango purée, keeping a spoonful back, and fold it through with two or three strokes only, enough to ripple bright orange through the pale cream without mixing it in completely.
Divide between two glasses, spoon the reserved purée over the top of each, and draw a knife or a skewer through it once to swirl it into the surface.
Watch-points
- Peel and stone the mango, then push the blended flesh through a fine sieve and discard everything caught in the mesh. Only the smooth purée goes into the fool.
- Keep the fool covered in the fridge and eat it the day you make it, since the cream is whipped and not cooked.
Some hospitals do not name mango on their list at all; the leaflet this book follows treats a ripe mango, peeled, stoned and sieved smooth, the same way as any other peeled, deseeded fruit purée. Leave it out if you have been told to.
Make it more nourishing
- Whip in 2 tablespoons of mascarpone with the cream for a denser, richer fool.
- Stir a tablespoon of skimmed milk powder into the yoghurt before it goes in, for about 3 g more protein across the two glasses.
- Serve with a plain sponge finger alongside for extra energy.
Swaps
- Instead of smooth natural yoghurt, use extra double cream
- a richer, less tangy fool, whipped a little softer to compensate
- Instead of a fresh mango, use 250 ml of tinned mango pulp, sieved the same way
- a reliable colour and ripeness whatever the season, when fresh mangoes are underripe