Mango-Misu – A Delicious and Easy Dessert!

“Take your pleasure seriously.” ~ Charles Eames

Every New Year’s Eve we have a small party at the farm, to celebrate life, the ending of the old year and the coming of the new AND the birthday of a dear friend.

What party of such calibre would be complete without dessert?

Mango Misu (or mangomisu) is a tropical twist on the classic Italian dessert Tiramisu. It’s light, luscious and totally delicious. As a further bonus it is one of those elegant and simple desserts that takes minutes to throw together, but that impresses everyone. Yay!

Ingredients

4 large mangoes, 6 to 8 small passionfruit or 4 large, Juice and zest of 1 lime, 1 cup of orange juice (Try to use freshly squeezed – it tastes so much better than bottled stuff!), 1.5 cups of thickened cream, 1.5 cups of ricotta cheese, 2 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar (confectioners sugar), 2 tablespoons Cointreau or Grand Marnier (optional but good), 250grams of savoiardi sponge finger biscuits (also known as Italian Ladyfinger biscuits)

Method

Find a shallow serving dish or a pretty bowl that will fit about 10 cups (2.5 liters)

Zest and then juice the lime.

Take the pulp from 1/2 the passionfruit.

Place the cream into a mixer with the icing sugar and beat until soft peaks form. Fold through the passionfruit pulp, ricotta cheese, lime zest and juice. Taste. If not sweet enough for your liking add a little more sugar. Set aside.

Cut up your mangoes and dice the flesh. If you want to be fancy cut one mango into slices to add a decorative twist to the top of your dessert.

Pour your orange juice into a shallow wide bowl, big enough to fit a sponge finger in. Add the alcohol. (It’s fine to omit the alcohol if you prefer alcohol-free!)

Now begin your layers.

Dip a sponge finger biscuit into the orange juice mixture and leave for just a moment. Remove and place into the dish. Complete a layer of biscuits and then add a layer of the cream and ricotta mixture.

Add a layer of chopped mango.

Repeat with layers of biscuit, cream and ricotta and mango until you reach the top of the dish. Spoon the pulp from the remaining passionfruit over the mango layer. Chill for 4 to 6 hours, or overnight if possible to really allow the flavours to amalgamate.

Serve and enjoy!

And how it looked when we ate it?

It was GOOD.

So good…. 🙂

Why not whip one up this weekend? You’ll be glad you did!