I love coconut.  Show me a chocolate selection box and I always go ferreting for the coconut ones.  There’s that blue one in Quality Street and explain to me what is exactly wrong with a Bounty Bar?  So when I found a recipe  on German website Vanilletanz, I couldn’t resist.  It is  a delicious confection of coconut mousse, with a mango curd layer, a mango jelly layer,  a crunchy praline and coconut base, accompanied with mango meringues and decorated with white chocolate swirls.

It elicited gratifying “oohs” from our guests, with the very high praise from the beloved that this was the best of the various entremets I have recently made – high praise indeed from a man who usually wrinkles his nose when I mention any pudding involving desiccated coconut.

The occasion this time was for 2 dinner parties, one for old university friends in London, and one in Suffolk for neighbours.  I had limited time so decided to do 2 versions of the same torte which meant I just had to make enough of each element to go into 2 moulds.  Inevitably that led to spreadsheet fun and games trying to scale up recipes – something which always leaves me worrying I don’t have enough, but I have the hang of it now and calculating the volume of a cylinder (∏ r-squared by the way) and applying ratio increases to recipes,  is now a particular skill  I have acquired since doing entremets and needing to scale up recipes.

This torte is simply delicious and well worth the effort.  I did tweak the original recipe though. I massively boosted the coconut flavour in the mousse by using coconut milk for all the fluid elements in the mouse and using cream of coconut to push it a little more.  After a number of searches I haven’t yet found coconut mousse recipe that has one this so maybe I have an original recipe for the first time?

The crunch layer is a simple mix of desiccated coconut, praline, paillete feuilletine and white chocolate, which I boosted a little more by adding melted cocoa butter.  The mango layers in the bigger version were mango curd and mango jelly, and the mango meringues were made using dried meringue powder.  In the smaller one I just left out the mango jelly. It was all finished with white cocoa butter spray which is much quicker than mirror glaze and sets off the flavour in the base well.  The top is decorated with white chocolate swirls which are not horrendously complex to make as long as you follow the steps.

In theory there are lots of elements but you can make the praline and paillete feuilletine in advance, (you can also buy Paillete feuillitine), and you can buy velvet cocoa butter spray online.  You should also make your life easier by buying mango puree pre-made but check the ingredients to see if it is pre sweetened and reduce the sugar quantities in the recipe (and increase the puree quantities by the same amount) to compensate for this.

In terms of difficulty I would put this at medium. The crunch layer is really simple to make (especially if you have the base ingredients in your store cupboard) , the mango jelly is just puree and gelatine, which leaves only the curd and mousse which have a few tight corners to them.  You obviously need to allow time for each layer to freeze so I suggest starting at least 2 days beforehand.    The effort pays off though.  Just typing this reminds me of the flavour bombs that this torte set off in my head!

The Recipe

The Ingredients

Equipment

• Two 10″ (24cm) cake boards
• 8″ (20cm) mousse mould ring
• 6″ (15cm) mousse mould ring
• cooking thermometer
• white cocoa butter velvet spray

Crunch Base

• 55g white chocolate (finely chopped)
• 30g melted coconut butter
• 50g paillette feuilletine
• 20g desiccated coconut
• 20g ground nut praline

Mango Curd

• 2.5g gelatine sheets (about 3 sheets)
• 85g mango puree (increase to 95g if the mango puree is already sweetened)
• 2 medium eggs
• 2 medium egg yolks
• 60g sugar (reduce to 50g if the mango puree is already sweetened)
• 60g unsalted butter (cold and diced)

Mango Jelly

• 3.5g gelatine (about 4 sheets)
• 130g mango puree (increase to 150g if puree is already sweetened)
• 20g sugar (reduce to zero if puree is already sweetened)

Coconut Mousse

• 5g gelatine (about 6 sheets)
• 210g coconut milk
• 2 dessertspoons of  cream of coconut
• 1tsp of cornflour
• 1 medium egg yolk
• 10g sugar
• 200g white chocolate (finely chopped)
• 160g whipping or double cream

Mango Meringues

• 50g egg whites (about 2)
• 50g caster sugar
• 50g icing sugar
• 20g freeze dried mango powder
• yellow food colouring
• orange food colouring

The Method

Crunchy Base

• wrap the 6″ (15cm) mouse ring in a single sheet of clingfilm and place on a cake board
• make sure your paillete feuilletine is in small flakes
• mix your desiccated coconut, praline and paillete feuilletine in a bowl
• put your white chocolate and cocoa butter in a bowl, place over a pan of boiling water and melt
• pour over your dry mix and stir until thoroughly mixed
• spread evenly but into the mousse ring being careful not to press it down (if you press it down, the base will be too tough – you want it to have an open crunchy texture)
• place in the freezer for a couple of hours

Mango Curd

• soak your gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water
• whisk your eggs, sugar in a bowl
• heat your mango puree until just about to boil
• pour slowly over the egg mixture whisking as you go
• put back in the pan and reheat slowly to 82C (no more than 85C or else the mixture will turn into scrambled eggs) stirring all the time
• take off the heat
• squeeze excess water out of gelatine and stir into the mango until melted
• press the mixture through a sieve to remove lumps
• add the butter and stir until fully melted and the mixture is smooth and silky
• take your crunchy base out of the freezer, and pour the curd over it to form a smooth layer
• place back in the freezer and leave until fully frozen (usually about 5 hours or overnight)
• once fully frozen remove from the mould and warp in clingfilm and store in the freezer

Mango Jelly

• wrap the 6″ (15cm) mouse ring in a single sheet of clingfilm and place on a cake board
• soak your gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water
• put your mango puree and sugar in a pan and heat until joist about to boil
• take off the heat
• squeeze the excess water out of the gelatine, and stir into the mango until fully mixed in and dissolved
• pour into the mousse ring and freeze

Coconut Mousse

• soak your gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water
• mix your coconut milk and cream of coconut together and put in the liquidiser until fully combined and smooth
• whisk your eggs, sugar and cornflour together in a bowl
• heat your coconut milk until just boiling
• remove from the heat
• pour over the egg mixture until fully combined
• reheat slowly to 85C until thickened
• press back through a sieve
• stir in the white chocolate until fully melted and combined
• cover with clingfilm touching the surface
• allow to cool to 35C
• whisk your cream to soft peaks
• fold into the cooled coconut mixture

 

Assembly of the Torte

• wrap the 8″ (20cm) mouse ring in a single sheet of clingfilm and place on a cake board (do this while the mousse mixture is cooling)
• line your mould with stiff clear acetate (don’t worry if you don’t have this but it makes it easier to extract the torte later)
• pour mousse into mould to the depth of 1.5 cm
• place in freezer until beginning to firm (about 20 minutes)
• take your mango jelly layer out of the freezer and place on top of the firmed coconut mousse
• pour the rest of the mousse into the mould
• take your crunchy layer and press lightly into the mousse with the mango layer down, making sure you have a flat level
• place the whole mixture in the freezer over-night

Mango Meringues

• heat your oven to 80C / 60C fan
• whisk your egg whites and sugar until glossy and stiff
• use yellow and orange colouring to get an authentic mango colour and whisk quickly to make sure it is fully combined
• sift the mango powder and icing sugar together into a bowl
• fold into the mixture
• pipe mixture onto a lined baking sheet into small meringues
• bake for 60-90 minutes until meringues are dry and crunchy

Final Decoration

• take your torte out of the freezer
• take out of mould and place on a board
• spray with velvet cocoa butter until lightly covered (do this inside a box turned on its side as the spray goes everywhere)
• decorate with meringues and white chocolate decorations to your taste