A: Welcome to VOV24/7’s Food Delight, a show with lots of cooking tips, recipes, and your hosts: A and B. If you love cooking– or just love to eat –please stay tuned…….

B: Hi, everybody. Summer has come and it’s really hot and humid in Hanoi. I wish I could go somewhere to escape this sticky summer heat.

A: Oh, B, that’s just life in Hanoi. You can’t escape it. Unlike you, I don’t like travelling far from home, getting carsick, or going to a crowded beach. I just want to stay home and enjoy some smoothies and cakes. What could be better than that?

B: Well, your idea really isn’t too bad. I think a piece of fruit mousse cake could be very refreshing on a hot summer day.

(Photo: beemart.vn)

A: On our show today, we have Nguyen Cam Ngoc from Beemart, a purveyor of baking accessories and cake decorating. She’s here with a recipe for mango mousse cake. Ngoc: “The mousse cake has a light and airy texture. Mousse is typical with the combination of fresh fruits, fruit syrups and whipping cream. The cake is soft and melts in your mouth. You can add some other ingredients to enhance flavors but the main ingredients are whipping cream and fruit syrup”.

B: With only a handful of ingredients like whipping cream, gelatin, and some of the fresh fruit in your refrigerator, you can create an amazing dessert for hot summer days.

A: The first step in making a mousse is to create a base for the cake. You can use either a cookie crust base or a sponge cake base. If you prefer a sweeter flavor and don’t have a lot of time, you should go with the cookie crust base. 

B: Before we tell you how to make the cake, let’s list the ingredients… For a 16-centimeter mousse cake, you’ll need: 1 pack of Oreo cookies, 50 grams of butter, 250 grams of whipping cream, 200 ml of mango syrup, 11 grams of gelatin, some water–and 1lime, if you like.

Everybody ready? Ngoc will tell us how to make the cookie crust base: “Crush the cookies. Melt the butter evenly. It’s quicker to use a food processor to crush the cookies to a breadcrumb consistency. Then pour the melted butter and combine well. Spread the crumb mixture in a loose-bottomed tin and smooth with the back of a spoon. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes to set the mixture”.

A: That’s for the cookie crust base. An extremely busy person like you, B, should do this one, I think. It takes just 15 minutes compared to spending an hour baking a sponge cake base.

The most important part is whipping the cream. I’ve failed on several occasions previously because my whipped cream was too runny. Let’s ask Ngoc: “If you whip the cream too long, it might turn to liquid. First whip it at the lowest speed and then gradually increase the speed. It’s important to do this part right. From time to time, stop the mixer and check the whipped cream. Whip it until soft peaks form”.

A: Now I know how to make perfect whipped cream. If you have a good cream mixture, the next steps become much easier.

Ngoc said: “Put the gelatin into cold water to soften it for 5 minutes. Melt the gelatin in the oven for 10 minutes. Then add the gelatin, mango syrup, and maybe a little lime juice to the whipped cream. Mix it well using a folding technique.

Spread the mousse mixture onto the base and let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours”.

B: If I want to use fresh mango instead of mango syrup, does the recipe change much?

Ngoc: “We just adjust the amount of mango a little. For this recipe, we use 300 grams of fresh mango to replace 200 ml of mango syrup”.

(Photo: beemart.vn)

A: With a few ingredients and some simple steps, you can create a great dessert for a hot summer day.  Be sure to join us again next time. Until then, this is A and B saying: Good bye and bon appétit!