Picked the last of the mangoes this morning. Maybe a week more of mango gluttony, then it’s over (except for the chutney and the pickles and the icecream) for another year.
So here’s the mango upside down cake recipe, so I remember it for next year.
The Recipe:
Turn your oven on to heat up to medium (180°C or 350°F).
Grease a 20 cm cake tin and line the base with a circle of greaseproof paper.
Make the mango topping first.
Slice enough mangoes to nearly cover the bottom of the cake pan in a single layer. Arrange them in a decorative circle if you like. Sprinkle half a cup of chopped macadamia nuts in the gaps.
In a frypan, melt a good dessertspoon of butter and a good dessertspoon of raw sugar. Cook for a few minutes till the butter sugar mix just starts to caramelise and go sticky, then drizzle this mix over the mangoes and nuts.
Now make the cake batter.
In a food processor, blend together 100 gm butter (just under half a cup, or most of a stick) with half a cup of brown sugar.
When it is nice and fluffy, add three eggs, one by one, and half a cup of chopped mango.
Then a teaspoon of vanilla, or scrape half a pod, and a cup of self-raising flour.
Pour this over the mango topping.
Bake for around 40 minutes in a medium oven till a straw comes out clean.
Cool for ten minutes or so in the pan, then carefully turn out. I run a knife around the edge of the cake in the pan, put a plate over the top, then invert and tap lightly on the bottom of the pan. Carefully peel off the paper. Voila!
Hi Linda.Luv your website.I started my,should I say your, permaculture mandala system 3 years ago at Mt Maria near Bundaberg and its a joy to enter into this wonderland each day. However,this is the first summer I have planted BEANS in Qld – the Victorian that I am!)after reading your paras about Snake Beans but have been disappointed. After 1 feed,and an extremely hot period, they stopped producing at all. I noticed bugs…LARGE BROWN BEAN BUGS ,I believe which have damaged every leaf axil leaving brown wounds over all.I hope the follow up butter beans and green beans do better. Any suggestions? Anyone? TKU. Kate.
Mangoes are finally affordable here in Melbourne and I will be trying your recipe after my next market shop on Saturday. I know it will work out because everything I cook from your recipes works out. Many thanks in advance.
Ours are late this year. I’m making green mango pickle but none ripe yet. But soon!
Hi Linda, I got your book a while back, so inspired I’ve been making compost for most of my summer vacation. There’s a pony a few minute walk away and I have developed some nice muscles hauling pony poo and water weeds up hill. The summer was ungodly hot so I could only work in early morning and late afternoon. My compost smells wonderful. My Japanese mother in law says it smells like gardens used to.
Anyway I’ve been singing your praises to my good friend who wants her organic farmer husband to experience a permaculture farm. Our climate in southern Japan is much closer to yours than Europe. We were wondering if you do workshops or tours or if not can you direct us to someone who does? My friend lived in Queensland for a while and loved the idea of bringing her husband there to learn.
I just read your list of things about you, if you lived nearby we’d be friends!
Best,
Martha
Hi Martha, I love the smell of compost too. It’s lovely, and encouraging, and also humbling to get messages like yours from all over the world. I would love to go to Japan but I can’t see it happening. But I will get back into writing here, sometime soon. I’m working on a novel and as soon as that is finished. I’d love to hear how it is to live permaculture-ish-ly in your part of the world.