#173_Easy Homemade Mango Jam

Mango Jam

Mango jam is my number one favorite jam,
but I have an issue with the sugar contents
in those commercially made ones.
I'm so glad I can make my own so I can control
the amount of sugar I can use in the recipe.
It is very easy to make and no pectin necessary.

This kind of mango is okay for jams.
When peeled and sliced, 6 mangoes makes about 7 cups

Peel mangoes and slice and chop into chunks.

To the sliced mangoes, add 1 cup water.
Bring it up to a boil over medium high heat
then lower heat to medium low
and simmer for about 30 minutes
stirring frequently to avoid scorching.
Add 1-1/4 cups white sugar ( more if prefer)
and juice of 1 lemon or lime.
Stir to mix the sugar well with the mangoes.
Continue to simmer on low heat for another 30 minutes or til thick
without disturbing the mixture the first 15 minutes
after you put in the sugar.
( I like my mango jam chunky so I don't put it through a sieve)

Ladle hot jam into hot sterilized jars
and process in water bath for about 10 minutes.
(Please refer to canning guides)
This recipe yields 10- 4 oz. jars

or yields 5-8oz. containers

Another way to preserve the jam
is to ladle them into freezing jars, then freeze.
Very good on buttered toasted bread and pancakes;
and topping for Biko, click here and here.

ENJOY!!

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#170_ Biko & Mango Jam Deja Vu

Biko Topped with Home-Made Mango Jam
from Post #167

The kids in my ward were playing "Fear Factor"
and requested people from other nationalities
to bring food from their countries.
Well, I didn't want to gross the kids out too bad so I thought
the new biko recipe of mine might be a good one to take to them.

Lisa Taylor in the center is holding the bilao-ful of biko
with the rest of the no-fear-for-the-biko youths.


Here's how to prepare this dessert:

1) Make the Biko without the traditional topping.
To check out the Biko recipe, click here.
2) Press cooked Biko in a baking dish and slice it into squares.
3) Place each slice in paper muffin cup liners.
4) Make indentations in the center of each rice cake
with the back of a measuring teaspoon,
then fill them with mango jam.

ENJOY!!!

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#167_Biko with Mango Jam Topping

Here's another way to serve Biko.....
top it with Mango Jam. Mmmmmm goodness!!

I might be breaking the rules here
by deviating from the traditional biko topping,
but this sure gives the "old" Biko (click here), a nice lift.

I had biko and mango jam in the freezer and every time
I opened the freezer these two kept staring
at me like they're screaming:
"get me out of here!" and " eat me, eat me!"
I felt sorry for them so, finally the other day,
I took them out of the freezer
and thawed them out in the fridge overnight.
Just before I put them together,
I heated up the Biko in the microwave,
then topped it with Mango Jam.
What an excellent pair! Made in Heaven!
Fabulistic!!!

Mango Jam goes really well with sticky rice or malagkit or biko.
To make plain Biko check out Sushi Style Biko recipe #165.
For Mango Jam recipe click here.

I bought a box of these red/green mangoes a while back.
I knew I wouldn't enjoy them, but because I was desperate,
I thought I'd give them a try.
Didn't care much to eat them after all, but
to turn them into jam, they're okay.

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#165_Sushi Style Biko with Mango Custard Cream Filling

Mangoes + Brazo de Mercedes + Biko + Sushi=
A fantastic dessert

Not quite Heinz 57, but this is one "mixed-up" dessert!

For those not familiar with Brazo de Mercedes, it is a very popular dessert in the Philippines
made with baked meringue filled with custard cream, then rolled up like pumpkin roll cake or jelly roll. Here's some of the pictures, click here.

Biko is another favorite dessert in the Philippines made of glutinous rice, cooked in coconut cream and sugar. Click here.

To make this dessert, you'll need:

1 recipe for Biko without any topping
1 recipe for Custard Cream Filling
1 ripe mango, sliced lengthwise

The beauty of this dessert is that the main ingredients, the biko and cream filling, can be made ahead of time then refrigerated.
Before serving, just heat them in the microwave. You can even assemble it in front of our guests. It is that easy to make.

I modified the method for making Biko just for this recipe as I'm using it to roll up the mango filling, and it is not going back to the oven.

Here's how I did it:

This is just a half of the recipe
Please refer to recipe #7, click here, how to make Biko.

After cooking the glutinous rice in the rice cooker, dissolve 1 cup brown sugar in a 1/2 a can of coconut

milk, in a pan over medium heat. Bring it up to a boil. Stir in the cooked rice and continue to cook until it dries up and rice is fully cooked.

Lay a piece of plastic wrap on a work surface. On the plastic wrap spread some of the cooked rice into rectangle and spread some of the Custard Cream Filling. Arrange some sliced mangoes on the cream.

Roll up the filled rice just like rolling a jelly roll cake

Cut the rolled up Biko into about 2-inch thickness

Serve them on a plate with the cut sides up.
Put some more cream filling and cubes of mangoes on top.
Thin down the cream filling with milk
so you can drizzle it easily on top.

This is the best kind of mangoes to use for this dessert.
ENJOY!!

NOTE from MaMely:
For the custard cream filling, I used 1 whole can of coconut cream instead of 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup coconut cream.

#160_Incredible Mango Custard Tart

I never had a goofier day than the day I was making this dessert for a Filipino get-together. First of all, my heart was set on making Brazo de Mercedez which is a Filipino dessert made of baked meringue with custard cream filling. Usually the custard is made of condensed milk and egg yolks, but I made mine totally different.

Early in the day, while making the custard filling for the "Brazo.." I found out that I didn't have enough fresh milk called for in the recipe, so I substituted some coconut milk which turned out to be super delicious! This is not an exaggeration and I don't usually like to pat my own back either, but because I'm so elated by the amazing result of this custard cream filling, I can't help but let everybody know how good it turned out.

The addition of the coconut cream in the the cream filling makes the taste so awesome and the amount that I added in was just the right amount. When you bite into it, the taste of coconut is not overpowering the custard, instead it just stays in the background. The blending of all the ingredients is so perfect and out of this world that when I first sampled the filling I thought I died and gone to heaven! I kid you not, it is that good.

I don't want to bore anyone reading this post with what had transpired while I was making the "brazo" dessert, so I will try not to go into details of the dilemmas I encountered along the way but rather give a synopsis.

Making the meringue for Brazo de Mercedes

While making the meringue, I got side-tracked and in short, the meringue didn't turn out, so I quickly grabbed a box of supposedly Puff Pastry from the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw out. I knew this would take about half an hour to thaw them out plus 18 minutes to bake the crust. By now, I had about an hour before I had to leave to go to the party. About 25 minutes later, when I opened the box, and to my dismay, they were not Puff Pastry, but instead they were Fillo Dough! I had used it before as a wrap but not as a pastry shell and I definitely didn't have time to thaw out the Puff Pastry again. So my first impulse was to go to the store and get some ice cream and cookies to take instead, as I had made a commitment to bring desserts. These desserts sure were stressing me out! (BTW, stressed, spelled backwards is desserts). Whenever I'm under any kind of pressure my brain freezes. I knew I had to calm down to get my brain to function and working right. Taking a deep breath didn't do it.

After a few gulps of my favorite soda, I finally calmed down and was able to figure out how I can best use the Fillo Dough for this dessert.

Well, I was 20 minutes late to the party but everybody liked my serendipitous dessert. It even got two thumbs up from the persnickety eaters. Sometimes good things can come out of mishaps!

So now, what I'll do is to put the recipe for the Brazo de Mercedez on the back burner for now, and post the recipe for the Mango Custard Tart.

The only caveat for this recipe is that you might need to figure out what to do with the egg whites if you don't want them to go to waste...that is, if you have time to make use of them. If you do, you probably can make some divinity or meringue cookies,etc. otherwise, aww, just chuck it.

Mango Custard Cream Filling:

3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 cup fresh milk
1 cup coconut cream
6 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 ripe mangoes, cubed

Mix the flour and sugar together in a sauce pan

Pour in the milk and the coconut cream and stir until the flour is totally dissolved. Turn stove on medium and cook the mixture until it becomes bubbly, stirring constantly, then turn the heat down to medium low and continue to stir. (I didn't have to cook this in a double boiler). Actually this is the only hard part of making this dessert.... constantly stirring the mixture. In a way, this makes a good work out for the arm!

Take the pan off the heat and, pour in the egg yolks little by little, continuously stirring the mixture. Make sure not to get impatient and pour in the yolks more than a tablespoon at a time, otherwise you'll end up with scrambled eggs.

When all the yolk is added in to the mixture, return the pan to the stove and continue to cook, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens but spreadable like the consistency of mayonnaise.

Add in the cubed mangoes and set aside.
(The filling can be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge).

The Custard Filling with coconut cream, chunks of mangoes
in a flaky and crunchy Filo pastry shell make this dessert so unique
and super delish and yet simple and easy to make.

Preparing the Pastry

There are 2 packages of Fillo dough in a box and each package has 20 sheets. You only need 20 sheets for this recipe.

1) Line a baking pan with a parchment paper.
2) Take a sheet of Fillo dough and brush with melted butter and lay it on the baking pan. Do this with each of the 20 sheets of Fillo dough stacking them on top of each other on the baking pan in a staggering manner. If they tear out don't worry, just overlap them. They don't have to lay flat on the baking pan so it is okay if they wrinkle up. This is not supposed to be a perfect crust.
3) After all the sheets are laid on the baking pan, roll up the edges. (Actually, what I've done because I was in a hurry, I took out more sheets from the other package, maybe about 4-5 sheets at a time, roll them up and twisted them and place them around the edges. It worked really good. If you look closely at the top picture, you can see that the edges have that twisted effect).
4) Bake the pastry in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for about 20 minutes or until it turns golden brown.
5) Take the pastry out from the oven and set it on a platter and fill it with the Mango Custard Cream Filling.

I'm already so excited thinking about the endless ways I can use the cream filling in different kinds of desserts. In fact I'm already thinking of using it to make a Boston Cream Pie. And how about mango sushi using malagkit? Not a bad idea, aye?

ENJOY!!!

UPDATE: 8-6-09


This is an update after a friend of mine made this recipe using the red/green kind of mangoes. She said the custard cream filling tasted so good but the mangoes tasted so bland.
Please, by all means, use this variety of mangoes...they can be found in most Oriental stores and at Costco. They are called Manila mangoes. Unfortunately, just like some other fruits they have their season.

#151_Mango Custard Chiffon Cake

This was my first Mango Custard Chiffon Cake to make which was purely experimental,
but luckily it turned out really good except the cake part wasn't thick enough.
My next tries were perfect (I think!)

The procedure is quite lengthy, but don't let it turn you off because
this cake is so delicious and it is worth all your effort.

There are 3 parts to making Custard Cake
and I got each part from 3 different sources:

1) Caramel from Tyler Florence of Food Net Work
2) Custard or Leche Flan by Manang of kusinanimanang
3) Chiffon Cake refer to my Orange Chiffon Cake, recipe which I had adapted from Joyofbaking.com

Without further ado, let's get started. First, with the mangoes....

Select good quality mangoes that are ripe, but firm.
Manila Mangoes are the best kind to use in this recipe.
Slice 2 fresh mangoes into chunks.
(Save the seeds to nibble on pulps).
Set aside.

(1) Caramel
Adapted from Tyler Florence

Make caramel using 1 cup white sugar and 2 Tb water.
In a stainless steel pot or pan,
combine sugar and water and cook over
medium high heat until sugar begins to melt.
Turn down heat and continue to cook without stirring.
The melted sugar will slowly turn into light brown then
to amber color (like burnt orange color)
Coat pans (I used 2 loaf pans) with the caramel,
swirling it around to coat about 1 inch up the sides of pans.

When caramel is set, spread cubed mangoes on top of caramel.
Set aside and prepare the Custard....

(2) Custard or Leche Flan
I have a recipe for the custard but it calls for
10 egg yolks which made me think twice
because of its cholesterol content.
Then I remembered copying down manang's recipe
even before I started blogging. Her recipe uses 4 whole eggs.

Recipe for the Custard or Leche flan:
recipe by kusinanimanang
4 whole eggs
1 can condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix everything in a blender pulsing 3-4 times
Pour this mixture equally into the prepared pans and
let them sit on the counter while preparing the Chiffon Cake batter.(3) Chiffon Cake batter

There are 2 parts to the Chiffon Cake batter:
A) the egg yolk mixture
B) the egg whites mixture or meringue

Separate 7 large eggs and set aside.
According to joyofbaking, it is easier to separate the egg yolks from the white
while eggs are still cold.

(A) Egg Yolk Mixture:
2 1/4 sifted cake flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
Sift all ingredients in a bowl.

Make a well in the center and add:
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp orange juice
1 tsp vanilla
7 large egg yolks
Stir all ingredients using a hand-held mixer, or a wire whisk
until everything is well blended together.

This is the egg yolk mixture.
Set it aside and make the egg white mixture...

(B) Egg Whites Mixture or Meringue
7 egg whites, @ room temp
1 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 cup white sugar

Using a stand mixer with the wire whisk attachment, whip egg whites with
cream of tartar till frothy then gradually add sugar.

Continue to whip until stiff-peak stage is formed.

This is a critical part of making the chiffon cake.
You don't want the egg whites to be neither under beat nor over beat.
See links below on how to whip perfect egg whites.



Fold the (A)egg yolk mixture into the (B)egg white mixture,
doing this in 3 parts, meaning
Fold 1/3 of meringue into the egg yolk mixture,
then take another 1/3 and fold.
When well incorporated, fold in the last third until
you won't see white part anymore.
This is the Chiffon Cake Batter.

Now we are ready to put the custard and the chiffon cake together....
Carefully and gently spoon cake batter on top of the custard mixture.
Bake the custard cake in bain marie or water bath:
Place the pans with the custard/cake in a larger pan,
then slide it in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven.
Pour some boiling water into the larger pan
up to sides of the height of flan.
Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour.

The cake is done when tooth pick (or bamboo skewer)

inserted in to the cake comes out clean.

After taking them out of the oven,

let them cool completely on a wire rack,
then invert them onto a platter.
Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before slicing.
ENJOY!!

Related Recipes:Chiffon Cake, click here.
Buko Pandan Chiffon Cake, click here.


Links on how to whip egg whites to stiff peak:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4542568_whip-egg-whites-stiff-peaks.html

http://lowfatcooking.about.com/od/dessert/ss/meringue_2.htm

http://www.ehow.com/how_7604373_stiffly-beat-egg-whites.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/21/dining/food-chain-shrinking-egg-whites.html

#95_Mango Shake

Manila Mangoes from Mexico?!

A friend of mine, Cora and her hubby, brought these mangoes back from
Sea Food City in Los Angeles.
They are called " Manila mangoes",
but they are actually grown in Mexico.
I love mangoes. To me they are celestial fruits.
I'm glad to have these from Mexico as they are the next best thing
to our very own Philippine mangoes.

We used to make mango shakes when we were back home.
We usually made the shakes with milk, pineapple gelatin, sugar, crushed ice and of course, mangoes. Man, it was so refreshingly good!!

Because I have a problem with milk, I made a different recipe today.
Here's what I came up with:
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup apricot gelatin
1 ripe mango, peeled and pitted
4 ice cubes

Put everything in the blender starting with the orange juice then put ice cubes in last.
Process on smoothie cycle. If you don't have that cycle in your blender, just process
for about maybe 60 to 70 seconds until everything is well blended.

The result?....
It got the approval of my hubby!!