MANGO UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

This is a cake I made last night at the last minute to bring to a Tai Chi Club anniversary lunch at Puteri Restaurant in Taman Tun. I was vacillating and wavering on the worth of the effort. It was a first time attempt at a mango cake and if it turned out ugly then I'll have a cake that no one in the house has an inclination to anyway, or I'll risk putting on a few kilos, up my cholesterol, and an increase of fat deposits in general just so as to not let the cake go to waste or I may have to give the cake to neighbours and let them think that I make ugly cakes. Frightening thougths I thought. I felt a shiver creep up my spine.

But I mustered up some courage and went in head first. Thank god it turned out all right. Not perfect but all right.

I had some regrets about the way I arranged the sliced mangoes on the 'top' or the 'bottom' (Oh dear this reminds me of my 'bottle of honey' post). Anyway, on hindsight, I should have filled the whole 'bottom' or 'top' with mangoes instead of leaving gaps in between each slice. Then it would have indeed looked very beautiful.

The second regret I had was that all the mango chunks that I added to the cake batter just fell to the 'bottom'/'top'. This is usually a sign that the cake batter had too much leavening agent and was therefore not solid enough to hold up the fruits. So the next time I make it I will reduce the baking soda to 1/4 teaspoon instead of using 1/2 teaspoon of it.

But nonetheless, it tasted really good.It was moist and had a wonderful flavour of orange and mango and lots of mangoes at the 'top'/'bottom'. Yum. It is not a fine textured cake but slightly coarse grained but soft and really moist and what I liked best about it was that it was not sickeningly sweet at all. The cake platter was swiped clean right down to the last crumb, scraped and licked, and all I brought home was a clean cake platter.



1 1/2 cups of cubed sweet mangoes
4 eggs plus 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
10 ozs butter
10 ozs soft brown sugar
10 ozs plain flour
2 teaspns baking powder
1/2 teaspn baking soda
pinch of salt
grated zest of 2 oranges and 4 tablspn of its juice

2 extra mangoes for the topping, peeled and sliced into 1 cm strips

3 tablespn butter, melted
1/2 cup soft brown sugar

mix melted butter and brown sugar in an ungreased 9 inch round cake pan. Arrange sliced mangoes close to each other like petals of a flower and a cherry in the middle. Grease the sides of the pan with a little butter to prevent the cake from sticking.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs a little at a time and beat till all eggs are incorporated and the mixture is smooth and well mixed. Fold in flour, zest, 4 tablespoons o forange juice and then the chopped mangoes. Drink the rest of the orange juice because you won't be needing it any more.

Pour cake mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or untila skewer inserted comes out clean. Leave the cake in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a platter.

Just before serving I sprinkled some icing sugar over the top from a sieve and that gave it a glossy effect as the icing sugar melted on the way to the lunch. It looked good.