Gluten-Free Mango Mousse Cheesecake

As promised, here is my second gluten-free cake recipe. It is a mango mousse cheesecake with a coconut macaroon crust. I used 8 large Mexican mangoes at their peak for this cake.

I made this cake in a 13 x 9 pan because I was serving 25. If you'd like to prepare the cake in a spring-form pan, which may be somewhat easier, do 2/3 of each the recipe. 

Coconut Macaroon Crust

The crust is a simple coconut macaroon recipe. Instead of separating into individual macaroons, I lined the bottom of the pan with the meringue-like batter. I adapted this recipe from here.

Ingredients

• 4 egg whites
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups shredded coconut

Line the bottom of your pan with parchment paper and pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Whisk together the egg whites and salt until foamy. Then gradually add in sugar and vanilla, beating constantly until the whites are thick and glossy and form soft peaks. 

Fold in the coconut until evenly mixed, then use a spatula to evenly coat the bottom of your pan, about 1 cm thick. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the top begins to turn golden brown. Remove from the oven, cool for about 5 minutes, then use the edges of the parchment paper to help you lift the crust out of the pan, and place in the center of your cake board. I like to use a large wooden cutting board. Cover and refrigerate if not using right away.

Mango Swirl Cheesecake

This part was the most spoon-licking good, but requires the mangos to be at their peak. If you can't find ripe mangoes, or if you feel that baking with a perfect mango is heresy (I've heard it), I suggest using canned mango puree. 

Ingredients

• 2-3 ripe mangoes
• 1 1/2 cup + 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tbs coconut milk
• 6 8 oz. packages of cream cheese, room temperature
• 7 eggs
• 1 1/2 tbs gluten-free flour

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom and sides of the cake pan with parchment paper and set aside.

Skin the mangoes and remove the pits. Place the flesh into a blender or food processor. Add 1/4 cup sugar and cocount milk and purée. 

In a large bowl, slowly whisk the cream cheese until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating slowly after each addition. Sprinkle the flour in and mix until just incorporated. 

Add 1 cup of the mango puree into the mixture and mix until fully incorporated. Pour the cheesecake batter into the prepared pan. Pour another 1 cup of mango puree on top of the cheesecake batter, then swirl it in with a fork. 

Bake for 55 minutes, then turn off and crack open the door to the oven. Let the cake come gradually to room temperature over several hours, then chill in the refrigerator. Remove the chilled cake from the refrigerator and flip onto the crust. You may need to borrow a friend's hands for this part. Don't worry too much if it cracks - you will be covering it with mousse anyway.

Trim the edges to give a nice, straight edge. Wrap tightly with wax paper around all of the sides, leaving about 2 inches of paper sticking out of the top. Chill until ready for the next step.

Mango Mousse

This mousse recipe is light and flavorful, and lime adds a little extra acid which I think heightened the flavor. I basically used the exact recipe from Slate.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tbs fresh lime juice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 cups mango puree

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, lime juice, salt and water. Cook over medium-low heat without stirring until it forms a golden-brown syrupy liquid. 

In the mean time, beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then pour in the syrup solution in a very thin stream while beating vigorously. Continue until the whites are thick and glossy.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream until soft, fluffy peaks form. Stir about 1/2 cup of the whipped cream into the mango puree, and fold the rest into the egg whites. Fold the egg white mixture into the mango puree until just incorporated, then spoon over the top of the cheesecake to make a flat layer. Chill in the refrigerator while preparing the glaze.

Mango Glaze

The mango glaze is a must for this recipe! It ties the whole cake together visually, and it's so much easier than I expected it to be.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tsp gelatin
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups mango purée
• 1/2 cup mango, cubed

In a small saucepan, mix together the water, gelatin, and lime juice. Stir once and leave at room temperature about 3 minutes. Add the sugar, turn on low heat, and bring to a simmer while stirring. Bring to a boil while stirring, then remove from heat. Allow to cool to room temperature, then stir in the mango purée. Toss in the cubed mango to coat, then pour slowly over the cake starting in the center and circling out, dropping the mango cubes near the center. Refrigerate for 2-4 hours. Serve chilled.



As you can see, I decided to add a bit of decoration. I whipped up 1/2 cup of heavy cream and added a small amount of yellow food coloring while whipping, to give a pale yellow cream. If you prefer, you can add 1/4 cup of sugar to the cream. I spooned the cream into a piping bag with a large star tip and piped 1 cm diameter dollops around the bottom edge of the cake, at an angle. It look a little bit like sea shells when piped this way.  

Enjoy!

Gluten-free Tri-Layer Dark Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake - Femia Cake

It has been a long time (six months!) since my last post. The first semester of my PhD has come and gone, and now I am enjoying the slightly more relaxed summer semester in the lab. One of my lab group's traditions includes a birthday-cake rotation, where the person whose birthday it was last provides a cake for the next birthday-person. Mine passed in late April, so I made a cake last week. I've been asked for the recipe, so I decided to type it up here.

I call it the Femia cake, after the birthday girl, and it is glorious. It is a tri-layer cake with a thick dark chocolate ganache on top, and a full 1.5 pounds of bittersweet chocolate baked in. I was inspired by this quadruple chocolate cake recipe, but wanted a plain cheesecake layer to give the palate a tart flavor to contrast with all that chocolatey deliciousness. The first layer is an extremely rich flourless rose-chocolate cake - have I mentioned before that I was diagnosed about a year ago with Celiac? - which is followed by a New York style cheesecake, then an adaptation of Julia Child's dark chocolate mousse recipe, and finally that decadent ganache. I spent a good hour fretting over what to do for decoration until I decided to set it off with a simple sprig of rosemary, which happened to be flowering in my garden at the time.

I had to work during the days preceding, so I only had evenings and early mornings to bake. I decided to go after this cake in three separate attacks.

Flourless Chocolate Cake Layer

The first was the flourless chocolate cake layer, which I made in a 9-inch round cake pan two nights before it was to be presented. The recipe is adapted from an Allrecipes entry.

Ingredients

• 2 tbs water
• 2 tbs rosewater
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbs sugar
• 9 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli) 
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and sides of a round cake pan well with butter, set aside. 

In a small saucepan, mix together the water, rosewater, salt and sugar. Heat while stirring until sugar is completely dissolved. It will smell lovely. Set aside. 

Melt your chocolate by your preferred method. I like to do it in the microwave, but sometimes the double-boiler method is more practical, especially if your microwave is wacky. Cut up your butter into small pieces, then melt into the chocolate one piece at a time. Whisk in the sugar-water while it is still hot, then add the eggs individually, beating well after each addition. I used a hand-held electric mixer for this part. 

Pour the batter into the cake pan. In a separate, larger oven-safe pan (I used a disposable aluminum roasting pan), place about 1/2 inch of boiling water and place on a middle-rack in your oven. Nestle the cake pan with your batter into the larger pan, carefully so that no water gets into your cake. This is a more gentle heating method, and the extra humidity in the oven will keep the top of your cake nice and glossy. Bake for 35 minutes, then remove to cool in the fridge overnight. The center may still look wet, but that's okay. It will firm up overnight. 

Removing it the next day from the cake pan is a bit of a struggle, but can be accomplished by placing the bottom of the pan in hot water. It doesn't matter if your cake cracks, because you're just going to top it with another layer anyway!



Which brings us to the cheesecake layer! I made a simple, New York style cheesecake.

New York Cheesecake Layer

I am a particular fan of cheesecake. I love when it has just a bit of tart, and I usually accomplish this by adding lemon zest or sour cream. This time I went with both. The trick for this layer is to line a spring-form pan with parchment paper, negating the need for a crust. The edges do tend to brown, but the cake is trimmed at the end anyway to fit it all together, so that's alright.

Ingredients

• 16 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup milk (I used almond milk)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/8 cup gluten free flour (or regular flour, if you prefer)
• 1/8 tsp xanthan gum (omit if using regular flour)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Line your spring-form pan with parchment paper. This was a whole ordeal for me - it took me nearly half an hour to get it right. Trust in the weight of your batter, though. You don't need to get the parchment paper to be perfectly flat; physics will do that for you when you pour in your cream cheese mixture.

On low speed or by hand (if you're strong), combine cream cheese and sugar. Add the milk slowly, then the eggs, one at a time. Beat after each addition until just incorporated. Add the sour cream, vanilla, and lemon zest. Make sure to wash your lemon before zesting it! Sprinkle in your flour and xanthan gum, if using. 

Pour into prepared pan. Place a pan of boiling water into the low rack in the oven, and place your cake pan one rack above. The humidity helps the cheesecake to not crack, although this, again, isn't that important, since you're going to cover it with mousse. Bake for 45 minutes, then turn the oven off and keep the door closed. Keep it in there overnight, then refrigerate the next day. If you're in a hurry, you can cool it more quickly by placing it straight into the refrigerator, but it may crack and in that case, I would add an extra 5-10 minutes of baking time. 

Once thoroughly chilled, remove from the spring-form pan and slide it onto the base layer. Trim the edges to match, then wrap the edges with wax paper or parchment paper, leaving a couple of extra inches on the top. This will support the mousse as it cools. I taped the paper together to keep it around the cake.

Dark Chocolate Mousse Layer

This was the most luscious, smooth and creamy mousse I have ever made. It is a bit more work-intensive than other recipes I have tried, but it was absolutely worth it for me.

Ingredients

• 6 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 6 oz unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 1/4 cup espresso
• 4 large eggs, separated
• 2/3 cup + 1 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs rum (I used white, but dark is more appropriate)
• 1 tbs water
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Heat a large saucepan filled partially with water to a simmer. Set a metal bowl on top, and melt together chocolate, butter and espresso. Stir until smooth, then remove from the water bath and set aside. Keep the water at a simmer.

Prepare a large bowl of ice water and keep that to the side.

Find another bowl to fit in your water bath, so you can temper your egg yolks. Nestle the bowl in the water bath and briskly whisk in your egg yolks, sugar, rum and water for about three minutes, until the mixture is thick. Remove from heat and place the yolks directly into your ice bath. Continue to beat until they are cool and thick, then fold into your chocolate mixture. 

In another bowl (this step requires a lot of dishes, sorry), add your egg whites and salt. Beat rapidly until they begin to foam, then gradually add in 1 tbs sugar.  Continue to beat until soft peaks form - don't let it stiffen! - then add the vanilla. 

Fold in a third of your egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the rest until just incorporated. If you aren't careful, your mousse will lose volume in this step. Pour the mousse on top of the cheesecake layer and chill for four hours in the refrigerator.

After chilling, remove the parchment or wax paper carefully. Now you're ready for the ganache!

Dark Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients

• 9 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 1 tbs espresso
• 1 cup heavy cream

Place your chocolate and espresso into a medium-sized bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the cream while stirring until it just begins to boil. Careful - cream will quickly boil out of the pan. Pour the hot cream into the chocolate and whisk together until smooth. I whisked it a bit more to give it a slight amount of volume.

Allow it to cool slightly, then pour over your chilled mousse, starting at the center and circling out. Chill for an hour or so before serving. Garnish as you'd like - edible flowers are always impressive.

My lab group was so happy with this cake that the cake's namesake asked me to bake for the next birthday, as well, and the group is spotting me for the cost of ingredients. I'll also go gluten-free for that one! Who says gluten-free can't be indulgent?