Grandma's birthday gathering happened to be on Saturday this year. It's a tough job to manage a cake for Saturday considering that I work till 6pm on Friday and have early baking class the next morning. I need to make something fast. By the time I opened the fridge I had a huge surprise: there were only 4 eggs in the fridge. I can't make a cake for 20+ people with 4 eggs! End up at the grocery store after a quick dinner and didn't start cracking the eggs until 930. That was a long night.
Having success at my trial version of the mango opera cake, I thought replicating the cake should be a quick an easy job. Think again! It was only logical to have the same amount of labour involve for a cake for 5 and a cake for 25. There were double more eggs to crack and whipping takes considerable longer. And of course the long day didn't help my hands to work faster.
The use of a mousse mold is essential for this cake. I figured the closest pan that I possess is a 11" square pan. I baked my cake in the pan, clearly not thinking through before I put that into action. The cake of course ended up smaller than the cake pan. There was a half inch gap between the cake and the pan during assembly and therefore the mango jelly and buttercream slided to the edges. It shouldn't be a problem if this were a mousse cake but I didn't have time to refridgerate the jelly ahead of time and I had to pour the liquid directly onto the cake. The layers turned out to be flatter than last time.
After the assembly the cake went in the fridge for an overnight nap and after my LONG breakfast bread class I flipped the cake over, trimmed the edges and decorated the cake with 3 fresh mangoes. I sliced them thinly at a slight angle parallel to the pit and rolled the slices up to resemble roses / calla lilies. They looked gorgeous, don't they? For reference, 3 small artufo mangoes can barely cover a 7" cake. Make sure there is enough for backup.
The cake again got lots of applause and I am proud of myself for pulling it off. I am happy but also worried at the same time. The mango puree that I used was purchased from a grocery store near my parent's house, which it just closed down last week. This might be the last time that I could make this cake until I find a substitute. I really can't imagine making enough fresh mango puree for this cake by myself. This might easily use up a whole box of 18 mangoes if they were all fresh.
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