mango puddings with lemongrass syrup

As a kid, my sweet tooth was legendary.  Mum used to hide any treats in a variety of locations around the house: in her third drawer down, hiding amongst her woolens I once found a packet of jet planes.  She sometimes hid the chocolate on top of the pantry, in the dusty gap between cupboard and ceiling.  I was like some kind of sugar sniffing bloodhound – I think I had about a 90% hit rate.  If a craving hit and I couldn’t find any sweet treats then I would simply sneak a teaspoon of sugar, letting it dissolve a little on my tongue before crunching the crystals between my teeth.  As I’ve gotten older, my sweet tooth has waned, replaced in part by a combination salt/potato-based-snack tooth (another story for another day), but I still often don’t feel entirely satiated until I have had a little sweet something after a meal.  These silky, sweet little puddings are a perfect way to round out a yum cha feast.  You will get between 4 and 6 servings depending on the size of molds used (and the greediness of your guests).  The freeze dried passionfruit powder really deepens the flavour, but if you can’t find any, simply omit it.

Ingredients

Yields 750mL pudding mix

• Pudding
• 425g can mango slices in syrup
• 2 tsp freeze dried passionfruit powder
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 425g can coconut cream
• ½ cup caster sugar
• 10g gelatine

• Syrup
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 lemongrass stalks, trimmed

Method

• Pudding
• 1. Puree mango, passionfruit powder and lemon juice until smooth.
• 2. Heat coconut cream and sugar together in a small saucepan. Simmer until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, sprinkle over gelatine and whisk until dissolved. Add mango puree and whisk to combine. Sieve.
• 3. Pour into pretty serving dishes, refrigerated overnight to set.

• Syrup
• Bruise lemongrass stalks with a rolling pin and combine with sugar and water in small saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool completely, strain and discard lemongrass.
• -
• To serve, top each pudding with fanned slices of fresh mango and pour over cold syrup.