Charlotte’s story

Charlotte is a very tasty, elegant looking and easy to prepare summer cake that is quite popular in France. Its core is creamy fruit mousse, bordered all around with ladyfingers. It is really a very light cake, and great for pairing with different fruits. I’ve prepared my first version with mango and it came out very well. The second version was with rhubarb and raspberries; that recipe I will share with you another time. For now, enjoy this mango charlotte decorated with raspberries.

Yield: 4 portions

Ingredients:

Mango mousse:

• 1 big ripe mango – should yield around 300g mango flesh, cut into small pieces
• 50g + 10g sugar – depends on how sweet you want it to be
• 4 gelatin leaves
• half of a lemon’s juice &  and the grated zest (optional)
• 50g water
• 100g liquid cream
•  10-15 ladyfingers
• Some fruit for the decoration according to your taste.

Step by step:

• First, start by preparing the ladyfingers as per this recipe. They need to be room temperature when you put the cake together. Optionally, you can of also buy them.
• Second, prepare the mango mousse. Peal the mango, and cut it into small pieces.
• Place mango, water, lemon juice, and 50g sugar  into the saucepan and put it over medium heat. Cook it for about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally until the mango has softened into a thick puree.
• Place 4 gelatin leaves into cold water and once they are soft, put them into the still hot mango puree. Stir until it melts. Put aside the mixture until it cools down.
• Meanwhile, prepare whipped cream by whisking the liquid cream and adding a little bit of sugar (10g or a bit more as indicated above).
• Once the mango marmalade is cold, mix into it carefully half of the whipped cream, then add the second half of the whipped cream and fold it all together.
• Place it into the fridge to cool down a little bit (up to one hour). If it seems that it will take too long for it to harden,, you can place it as well in the freezer.
• Once your mango cream is cold, start putting the charlotte together. For that, you’ll need a big cake ring without base. I used a 15cm diameter ring.
• Place some ladyfingers as the base of the cake inside the ring and others all around the ring, with the sugar part looking “outside” (in contact with the metal ring). This might take some patience and time, as the lady fingers are not as stable as they look like. Fill the “empty” middle with the mango mousse cream.

I hope that you’ll succeed!