The Well Travelled Spatula: The Austerity Army Goes Tropo, or Mini-Mango Cakes from the Hilltop Winter Kitchen

It is cold and wet this morning. It has been raining hard for three solid days. Today, it is supposed to ease, but get cold and turn to snow! Winter is truly upon us in the Hilltop Kitchen!

Snow is good, though. The way our wonky New Zealand weather works, a snowstorm is usually followed by a sunny high, which is often followed by Australian tourists who have never seen snow, children who want to make snowmen and people coming in from the cold to admire the snowy view. So, while today will be quiet, the next few days could be good for business.

Our Austerity Campaign is in full swing, and so far, so good. My bills are decreasing, the waste is decreasing and the freezers are starting to give up their previously paid for treasures. Mind you, we are not in trouble, we are just being pro-active. Last winter, we didn't feel the GFC so much. Overseas visitors already had their vacations booked, so they were committed to travelling regardless of the economy. New Zealand and Australian trevellers that hadn't booked anything were staying closer to home and that was good for us. But, this year, May has been all-time quiet. One of our sales reps today said that he has lost 28% of his client base. YIKES! So, we are being pro-active and our small army of austerity soldiers is marching forward!!!

My first task this morning was to make fresh scones. We always have a sweet muffin (chocolate, today) and a savory scone. So, this morning I made a batch of Cheese Scones -- Yummy! They came out light and fluffy!

The choices in the deli are, happily, turning over at an acceptable rate now that I have restricted the number of choices and the quantities available. But, last weekend, we did have to chuck out the better part of both a Carrot Cake and a Tennis Cake. I decided then that we needed to limit the cakes to small, individual cakes, and only have 3 or 4 portions available at any time. We have enough spare time to make additional batches, as needed. We are no longer doing bulk, and that is the mind-set change that seems hard to make.

A few weeks ago, I found some limes in the chill room that The Man bought on special, hoping I'd make a Key Lime Pie. Well, we were still busy-ish then, I wasn't spending any time in the kitchen and those limes never got juiced! So, last week, I got busy juicing as the limes were approaching "use 'em or lose 'em" stage.

After I juiced the limes, I poured the juice into ice-cube tray and froze them. The following day, I popped the cubes into a sealed plastic container and left them in the freezer. We now have 1Tblsp free-flow portions of fresh lime juice at our disposal!

Now, while The Man is the great shopper (he knows the price of everything and can spot a deal at a hundred paces), several months ago I purchased a huge, commercial size can of mangoes for NZ$2.17. Very cheap, very good purchase, right? Well, not if it just sits on the shelf all summer!!! Ironically, I randomly pulled out one of our many baking cookbooks (no offense, AR!) and the first mango recipe I found was for Mini-Mango Cakes with Lime Syrup!!! So, today is the day that I am going to give this a whirl!

In the meantime, for those of you craving an update on Project Bread (referring to blog posts last December), at this point I did get an order for Home-made Raisin Toast and our Home-made Multi-seed loaf toast! Projct Bread has actually been a complete success!!!

Back to the Mini-Mango Cakes. I opened the huge can and portioned the mangoes into several smaller freezable portions, using one portion to line the muffin tin with mango slices.

I creamed the butter and sugar, added in the eggs. I was about to fold in the flour, and ground almonds. Ooops! Crikey! 2 Tblsp of Coconut Milk?! I don't have any coconut milk on hand, and even if I did, I wouldn't want to open a whole can for 2 Tbsp. Yikes! I'll bet if I mix a few pinches of finely grated coconut (which we also have for the Anzac Cookies we make) with 2 Tbsp of pouring cream and let it infuse for a bit, it'll be fine. That done, I gently folded everything together and topped the mango slices.

It was at this stage, I got excited. This recipe only calls for 1/2 cup of flour and it also calls for 2 Tbsp of ground almond. This is secret recipe code for "This would be a perfect recipe to make Gluten Free!" Next time, I will sub 1/2 cup of GF flour, and I bet they turn out just fine! Wow! That means I can cover my GF people and my regular cake people with one small batch of mini cakes! Score one for the Austerity Army!

Into the oven and about 25 minutes later, the little cakes came out of the oven looking great. While they were, baking I prepared the Lime Syrup. Now the recipe said to mix 1/2 cup of water with a half of a cup of sugar and 2 Tbsp of lime juice. But, I had this huge can of mango syrup in front of me, so I put about 1/2 of a cup of the mango syrup, a little sugar and the 2 lime juice ice cubes into a sauce pan, simmered it until it had reduced a bit and set it aside.

I pierced the mini-cakes with a toothpick, as the recipe called for and then drizzled each cake with a few spoonfuls of the syrup. We let them rest for 5 minutes. I then turned them out and they looked good, but the fruit looked slightly brown. The Man was concerned. Hmmm... just a symptom of cooked fruit or.... Yuck! Tinny pan taste! Dang! I had considered lining the muffin tin, but the recipe didn't say to so...

Remedial steps are definately in order as the rest of the cake is fantastic! Line muffin tin with baking paper (only 3 spots, as one cake is not longer with us, having given itself to research).
Now, line baking paper with mango slices.

Then, I popped the tray in the oven for about 10 minutes until the fruit was 'baked'. I let the tray cool for a few mintues, then gently replaced the new mango for the old. They looked great.

We had a few lunch orders come through: 2 Mussel Chowders and 2 Fish & Chips (you saw both of those last post). We also had 2 Steak Sandwiches (Mmm, with smoked paprika mayo!)