In summers, when the temperature rises unbearably high, the mood just sets in for the simple, fast and fresh recipes like this mango eton mess. This is a no fuss, quick to whip dessert which can be assembled in no time. It is amazingly airy and light and yet so full of summer flavors. This quintessential British summer pudding is traditionally made with berries, but for us, summer means mangoes, stone fruits, melons, and litchis. So, I thought, why not give it a tropical twist and try it with seasonal mangoes. We get loads and loads of this fruit in peak summer and the varieties are endless. We are almost spoilt for the choices we get for mangoes here in India. For this mango eton mess, I picked up the Kesar mango variety, which is basically both sweet and sour in taste. The sweet and sour taste of mangoes beautifully cut through the sweetness of meringue cookies which go into this dessert. And the other thing which I did differently than the traditional recipe is to replace the whipped cream with some whipped Greek yogurt, which made it lighter. Just like a light dessert, you’d want to have on a summer evening. So, I call this as Eton Mess – my way!
- 2 ripe mangoes
- juice of 1 lime
- 300 ml greek yogurt
- 50 gm pure icing sugar
- seeds of 1 vanilla bean
- 2 tbsp pistachios
- 70 gm egg white
- 70 gm caster sugar
- 70 gm pure icing sugar,
- 1 1/2 tsp cornflour
- finely grated rind of 1 lime
- For lime meringues, preheat oven to 100 C. Whisk egg white and a pinch of salt in an electric mixer until soft peaks form (2-3 minutes). Whisking continuously, gradually add sugar until thick and glossy (2-3 minutes). Fold in icing sugar and cornflour to combine, then fold in rind and spoon into large mounds on baking trays lined with baking paper. Bake until crisp but not coloured (1-1¼ hours), turn off oven and cool completely. Store in an airtight container until required.
- Process one mango and lime juice in a food processor until very smooth and set aside. Chop the other mango into dices and set aside to serve. Whisk greek yogurt, sugar and vanilla in an electric mixer to soft peaks (3-4 minutes). Layer mango puree and whipped yogurt in serving glasses/bowls with crushed meringue and chopped mango. Serve topped with roughly chopped pistachios.