For a Fruitful Diet This Summer

From mango muffins to orange cakes, strawberry tarts or banana dosas, there are several innovative ways to include fresh fruit in one’s diet, besides the conventional fruit salads

CHENNAI: Want your kid to binge on fruit but do not know how? Dessert expert Sujani Nagarajah offers a simple solution, “Make it more colourful and use them in desserts.” For example, if your child is bored of having the neatly-cut slices of juicy mangoes, try mango custard tart, mango muffins, mango panna cotta, mango mousse, mango cheescake or mango preserve, says Sujani.

“All these are very easy to make. For example, for panna cotta, all you have to do is boil milk with gelatin on one side, add cream with sugar on the other, and combine these two. Add mango puree to it, and pour the mixture and wait until it settles. And your mango panna cotta is ready!” says Sujani. The same thing can be tried with tender coconut or strawberry puree. “Then there is the orange cake, which contains a lot of orange syrup. While the cake is still hot after baking, create holes in the cake, and pour in the syrup. It spreads through the surface, and when you take a bite out of it, it would be like eating the fruit,” she says. “These are healthy and good for summer. Also, since we use a lot of fruit, it isn’t necessary to add a lot of sugar to the desserts, and thus is relatively low of calories,” she says. In a workshop titled Fruitilicous Desserts, organised at Food Consulate, Velachery, recently, Sujani demonstrated simple desserts that use fruit. “I made fruit tart, strawberry mousse and banana with nutella cake. In yet another workshop titled summer bakes, we used all kinds of tropical fruits,” she says.

Another quick fix for your kids is to add banana and jaggery in dosa batter, suggests Kamalika Krishmy, culinary expert, and member of Chennai Food Guide. “In those days, grandmothers used to make this. It is like Kuzhipaniyaram, very tasty and proteinicious,” she adds. “One can also add slices of fruits like strawberry, mangoes, grapes and pomogranates in yoghurt. Since the fruit are also slightly sour, the flavours blend in well with yoghurt,” she says. And if one wants to make a healthy breakfast in a flash, there are always smoothies. “All you have to do is blend fruit, oats or flak seeds, honey and yoghurt, and your breakfast is ready!” she says.

However, when it comes to getting the best out of fruit, nothing can match a plate of fruit salad. “Fruits have so much fibre, and turning them into a glass of juice only reduces this fibrous content. Eat them raw. Especially, watermelon. It helps flush out all the toxic fluids in your body,” she says.

Kamalika will be conducting a workshop on salads and raw food at Foodology, Adyar, next week.For details, contact 9003054885.

No Bake Mango Cheesecake

• Ingredients For the base:
• Digestive Biscuit or Marie Biscuits – 150g
• Butter (softened) – 50g
• For the cheesecake:
• Gelatine/Agar Agar -10g
• Lemon Juice -15ml
• Cream Cheese – 120g
• Caster Sugar -70g
• Mango Puree – 100g
• Whipping Cream – 100g

Method To prepare the base:

• In a bowl, crush the biscuits and mix well with the butter.
• Press them well into the mould and refrigerate for 10mins.

For mango filling:

• In a small dish pour the lemon juice and sprinkle the gelatine and stir it lightly.
• Heat in microwave for 15 seconds until gelatine melts and forms a clear solution.
• In a bowl whisk cream cheese and sugar until it’s well combined and smooth.
• Add the melted gelatine and continue to whisk.
• Pour in the mango puree and mix till combined.
• Lastly fold in the whipping cream.
• Spoon it over the base prepared and chill until set.

Tips:

• Mango slices can be added on top of the set cheesecake.
• You can set it in shot glasses or in individual dessert bowls.