Mango Shortcake Recipe

My light and fluffy mango shortcake was a result of my husband requesting some kind of mango cake for his birthday recently. He ate two slices in one go, so I'd say it went down rather well indeed.

This mango shortcake is based on the Japanese strawberry shortcake – a super light, fluffy cake with cream and strawberries often eaten during Christmas (but also all year round, nowadays). It's basically a mango cream cake, with plenty of pillowy-light whipping cream and oodles of fresh, fragrant fruit.

I made the sponge cake a sort of 'cheat genoise' – I whipped the eggs as you would for a genoise, but not over a hot water bath. It still worked really well without 'preheating' the eggs first.

You can also watch me make this on my YouTube channel:

Ready? Let's go.

Ingredients for Sponge Cake:

4 eggs
145g caster sugar
85g self-raising flour
50g cornflour
Pinch of salt
15g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp milk

Ingredients for Soaking Syrup:

50ml water
50ml caster sugar

Ingredients for Filling and Topping:

500ml whipping cream
2 tbsp caster sugar
3 mangoes, chopped into chunks

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line two 8" round baking tins with a little vegetable oil and baking paper.

2. Place the eggs and sugar together in a very large bowl, and beat with an electric whisk until the egg and sugar mixture is super thick, foamy and voluminous, like a mousse. This will take about 10 minutes.

3. Sift in the flours and salt, and very gently fold together until just combined. Then fold in the butter and milk, divide evenly between the two cake tins.

4. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until puffy and a toothpick poked into the centre of one comes out clean. Leave to cool completely.

5. While the cakes are cooling, make the soaking syrup by mixing the sugar and water together in a small saucepan, bringing to a simmer, and bubbling for three minutes. Set the syrup aside to cool, too.

6. When the cakes and syrup have cooled, whisk the cream and sugar together until it forms fluffy peaks (be careful not to overwhip until it starts curdling and separating into butter). If the cakes are a little domed, use a knife to level the tops out. Then brush both cake rounds with the syrup, using it all up evenly between the two.

7. Sandwich the cake slices together with a little cream and half of the mango chunks on a serving plate. Cover the cake with cream, reserving a little to pipe around the edges on top, and fill the centre with the remaining mango.

8. Chill in the fridge for four hours so the cream sets and it's easy to slice.

Enjoy, and have fun.