I felt like it had been a while since I made a proper mirror glaze cake, so I just set out to make one for the sake of making one. I just happened to buy a mamey sapote fruit(it is a cousin of persimmon, and very similar to a papaya or sweet potato in texture), and it was REALLY ripe. So ripe, that I had no choice but to use it as soon as I bought it. So between having this ridiculously ready-to-cook-with fruit and wanting to make a mirror glaze cake, that was how this dessert was born! Like I mentioned, mamey has a similar texture to a papaya or sweet potato. It is really starchy, pleasantly sweet, but with an almost bitter, dry finish. So I opted to treat it like how I would a carrot in desserts. I made a brown butter mamey cake in the same fashion that I would a carrot cake, but with a little extra water added since the mamey is so dry compared to carrot. For my fillings, I went with mamey in a bavarois sweetened with lucuma, another cousin to is, since from my personal experiences of consuming it, the fruit works really well with dairy in ice creams and milkshakes, while the lucuma will perk up the sweetness of it. I also did a mamey halwa. Halwa is a carrot-based confection in India, made by stewing down carrots with condensed milk and spices. I sort of made a quick version of that by blending the mamey with Thai tea powder, which has spices, sugar, and milk powders in it, and just a little cream to thin it out a bit. Ironically, since mamey has so little actual water in it, whereas carrots have so much, I did not really need to cook the mamey for the Halwa to get that stewed down consistency. The ripeness of it was enough for it to be tender and malleable as a paste of sorts. For the dessert, I named it “At dusk, I will think of you”, as a reference to how hilariously orange the cake came out, representing the colors of the sky during dusk going into twilight. Yes, it is also a Kingdom Hearts reference. I am a former weeb. Fight me. 

For the mamey cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup mamey pulp, pureed
1/4 cup water
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
a pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown butter

Mix everything together. Spread onto a quarter-sheet pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 22 minutes. Cool completely then cut out a 6-inch ring.

For the mamey “Halwa”:
1/2 cup mamey pulp, pureed
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 packet of instant Thai tea powder with cream and sugar
a pinch of salt

Whip ingredients together. Fill a 1 inch by 5 inch ring mold with the Halwa and reserve the rest to make quenelles out of to top the cake with. Refrigerate.

For the mamey-lucuma bavarois:
2/3 cups mamey puree
3 tablespoons lucuma powder
1 packet gelatin powder
1/4 cup water
1 cup heavy cream
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix gelatin into water. Combine with mamey puree and lucuma and stir on low heat until the gelatin has completely melted into the mamey. Cool that mixture down to room temperature. Whip cream to stiff peaks with vanilla and salt. Fold into your mamey mixture. Line a 6-inch ring mold with acetate. Start with your cake first, then the 5-inch ring of halwa. Pour the bavarois mix over that. Freeze for 4 hours before removing the acetate and ring mold.

For the Thai tea mirror glaze:
1/4 cup water
2 packets gelatin powder
2 packets of instant Thai tea powder with cream and sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
a pinch of salt
1 cup white chocolate

Mix water with gelatin first. Heat up cream with Thai tea powder and add in your gelatin. Stir until combined on low heat, then mix in your salt and white chocolate as well. Strain out any lumps. Lower the temperature of the glaze to 90 degrees F and pour over the still-frozen cake.

To garnish:
Gold leaf

Top the cake with three quenelles of halwa, using warm spoons to guarantee a smooth surface when scooping. Garnish with gold leaf to finish.