When summers hit Delhi, there is little to look forward to, except the arrival of the king of fruits. Although not many varieties are available in the market yet (I am still waiting for daseri and langda to arrive), I recently got a taste of the goodness of the fruit at the ongoing ‘Mango Mania’ festival at Citrus Hotel Gurgaon (till June 10).
The promotion is only on desserts (they have around eight variants to offer) where each is priced at Rs.150. I was greeted by the sous chef Prabodh Praharaj who has worked on creating the unique mango recipes for the promotion. He started my mango treat with a ‘Happy Baking Cake’.
Basically, it was a mango flavoured muffin topped with butter cream and garnished with ripe mangoes. The muffin was fresh and moist and the butter cream blended well with it. I liked the butter cream, probably because I had it after a long time. Next to be served was ‘Extra Silky Result’ and indeed it was completely a different result of a mango preparation. A combination of fresh mango pulp and whipped cream, garnished with thin slices of mango, it was light, smooth and silky. Flavour of mango was very well balanced.
It was followed by ‘Sweeten up your Day’ — a nice sponge cake with layers of mango flavoured whipped cream. It reminded me of a bakery where I used to buy pastries when I was a kid. The sponge was fresh and very moist and syrup was almost oozing out of the pastry. Not overdone with mango, the sponge had vanilla layers. After couple of pastries I felt like a tart and when I asked chef about it he promptly served me one of his delicacies ‘Mango Barely Covers’ which was a pie filled with creamy mango and swirls of whipped cream on top. It was beautiful to look at and crispy to eat.
Another variant ‘Scrumptious Cake’ was based on a digestive biscuit which made it very light. It had a subtle chocolate flavour as well. Towards the end came custard which was more of a pudding and had robust flavours of mango. Saving the best for the end, chef served me ‘Aamsutra’ — a perfect scoop of mango ice cream circled with crunchy chocolate rings and surrounded by finely sliced sweet alphonso.
Each dessert is priced at Rs.150
