Mango in winter

[tino27]

As most of you in cold climates are well aware, mangoes this time of year are simply hard as a rock. One of the desserts I make is a white chocolate mango cheesecake. Knowing that I might be asked for some during the winter months, I decided to stock up on the stuff during the summer when it is ripe and in season.

Essentially, I put the mango flesh into a pot with a little bit of water and cooked it until soft. I then used an immersion blender to blend it into a puree. I then cooked the puree on low heat until a lot of the water had evaporated. Basically my stirring spoon could stand upright at this point. I cooled it to room temperature, transferred to appropriate containers, and put them in my deep freeze.

Knowing I needed to make a mango cheesecake tonight, I took one of the containers out of the deep freezer a couple of days ago and let it defrost in the fridge. When I finally went to use it, I discovered the most curious thing.

The mango puree has "solidified", almost as if I was making a pate de fruit (but obviously not as sweet). I could easily have cut it into squares. I tasted it to see if it had gone bad, and other than the gelatinous texture of it, it tasted quite nicely of mango.

I managed to break up the mango gelatin in some heavy cream using an immersion blender, but it got me to thinking ...

1) Why did it solidify in the first place? Could there have been enough natural sugars and pectin in the mango to actually firm up just by cooking it that long?

2) If I've driven that much water out of it, would it be possible to just refreeze the remaining portion that I didn't use? Or could I even keep it in the fridge long term?

To be fair, when I've cooked down the mango puree and then used it fresh (say, within a couple of days in the fridge), it has never solidified like that before.

[helenjp]

I think your unripe mango must have had quite a lot of starch that had not yet converted to sugar during the ripening process. Starch will gel quite nicely when cooked - so I'm guessing that's what happened!

Sound like a good theory for now?!

[tino27]

I think your unripe mango must have had quite a lot of starch that had not yet converted to sugar during the ripening process. Starch will gel quite nicely when cooked - so I'm guessing that's what happened!

Sound like a good theory for now?!

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I would buy that theory ... except the mangoes I used were completely ripe and in season. I made the puree over the summer when the mangoes were that beautiful combination of soft and sweet.

Now, if I tried to buy a mango right now ... it would definitely be unripe.

[helenjp]

OK! I didn't read your post properly, sorry. Back to the drawing board...

[reenicake]

1)maybe it was cooked to the point that unwittingly you caramelized some of the sugars. Basically caramelized sugar will set hard as a rock but sugar in solution will not. I do know that this is how they make a type of candy in the phils except that they start with some caramel, add the mango puree and boil the heck out of it.

2)I didn't think mango had a lot of pectin, (I tried to make pate de fruit with it once, the Boiron site tells you to augment with apricot because of mango's low pectin) but I guess some varieties do. Maybe you can try it come summer and make a fruit roll-up type thing. hmmm, sounds promising!

[alanamoana]

maybe not what you're asking, but interesting nonetheless:

Mango Pectin Article

there seems to be a reasonable amount of pectin in mango skins, so i would assume some of that would be in the fruit itself, thus giving you the product you ended up with.

[tino27]

After doing some research on the matter, I saw a number of articles on pectin and mango skins, too. I suppose it could be a combo of cooking the flesh long enough and there was just enough natural pectin and sugar that it actually set.

Like I said before, the resulting product is naturally sweet, but nothing like jam or jelly sweet. The other odd thing, too, is that if I cut a square of it, put it between two paper towels and compress it slightly, moisture seeps out. But to just open the container and touch it, it is dry.

I think I may have come up with a new phase of matter.

What a great alternative to candy though!