Whipped almond cake layered with mango mousse

I was in a baking mood on Friday so I thought yesterday (Saturday) would be a good day to dedicate to baking. I wanted to make mango mousse cake but while going through my cake recipe books, I couldn't find one, so I adapted from a recipe that uses wine for the mousse filling and changed it to mango puree. I used fresh imported mango from Taiwan, and pureed the mango flesh with thickened cream.

It was the most labourius cake I've ever baked in my entire life. Baking itself took me 3 hours to complete, and chilling and decorating another 4 hours. But it was worth the effort I guess. The whipped cream went really well, I always have had phobia whipping cream to get them white, light and fluffy. This time around I used thickened cream (friend's suggestion) and whipped manually instead of using the mixer, and made sure everything used was icy cold. The end results turned out really well for the whipped cream.

As I am writing now, the cake is still not cut yet, waiting for my friend Sam to come over so that we could cut together and then take a sliced photo!

Anyway, posting the photos of the whole cake first, but will be back later with the sliced photo. I personally think that the cake looks really good, don't you agree? ;) (Looks like it walked out from a recipe book and waiting to be devoured on the computer screen hehe :P )

I feel like my photography skills have improved tremendously too, compared to my initial experience with the 350D. And I have a better understanding about lighting and polarizer filters now, thanks to my friend Sing Tek!

When Sam arrived, I quickly sliced the cake and took the photos. Lighting was not that good but I didn't bother because I couldn't wait to taste the cake! It tasted sooooooooooooo good, worth every single effort. The mango mousse was so light and creamy, and the flourless whipped almond cake was fantastic, light and not too sweet. The only shortcoming was not enough mango taste in the mousse, next time I will use one whole mango instead of half. The sliced photos (though difficult to get a clean cut):