As I made my way to the kitchen, I spied a bowl full of red and yellowish washed mangoes sitting next to the sink. And I asked my mom "what are you making?” she replied in an exhausted voice "Help me bake mango cream cheese, again!"
Of course, I helped my mom because it’s always the right thing to do. Right then, my job was to peel and slice the mangoes into small sliced cubes. While cutting the mangoes, I accidentally made a huge mess. Every time I diced a mango a piece would always fall off the table and the juice would spray everywhere, on the table, on my shirt, and on my mom who worked next to me. She would often scold me to work neatly, but every time I try it always ends up with a huge mess in the kitchen.
We would cut enough mangoes that it would fill up a huge bowl the size of the sink. After filling the bowl we would add water, lemon juice and gelatin. Covering the bowl with saran wrap, we would stick it into the fridge and let it stay there for at least one night. This is why my mom plans to bake the pie at least one night before the party.
The next morning, my mom would hand me an empty butter bowl to mix the flour, butter, and sugar for the crust. This was the worst part for me because it would always take a long time for me to get it exactly the way my mom wanted it to be. My arm would ache mixing the crust until it was perfectly hard and clumpy. After this process, my mom would then give me a pan sprayed with pam. This step isn’t that boring as the mixing part. I would dump the crust I mixed into the pan and spread out evenly around the pan making sure there are no holes in the crust that I could see the bottom of the pan. I used my own special technique to spread the crust around. I use a rice scooper, a spoon, and/ or, I stick my hand in a Ziploc and begin spreading from there.
When done, I give my mom the crust filled pan to put into the 350 degrees heated oven where it bakes for 20- 25 minutes. As we prepare more and more pans of crust to bake, we stack each pan one on top of the other and wait for them to cool. While waiting, we prepare the cream cheese layer with one whole package of cream cheese mixed with sugar and cool whipped. My mom usually mixes this all with her blender made for baking using the bowl already provided with the blender to throw in all those ingredients. By the time this process is down the crust will already be cool.
My mom then takes a spoonful of her cream cheese and glides it evenly against the crust until it’s entirely covered. And with a thick layer of the mangoes, she pours an amount of it onto the cream cheese layer and makes sure it layers it until it almost touches the top of the pan.
Finally, the mango cream cheese is ready to be served. My mom usually saves two pans for us in case there is no extras after the party. For as long as I can remember my mom never does bake mango cream cheese out of the ordinary because it is a long process to complete and she doesn’t have the patience or the time to do it unless it’s for a special occasion.
Overall, her mango cream cheese pie contains three delicious layers. The mangos are juicy, sweet, and often jelly like. The cream cheese layer feels nice and cool especially when it runs through my finger its like touching a cloud or a soft marshmallow and the crust is tough, crunchy, and usually tastes like bakes cookie dough. The cream cheese and the crust are always my favorite part. I eat the mango first then save the cream cheese and crust after. Then after I scrap the cream cheese with my fork leaving the crust untouched. And finally I pick up the crust as if it was a pizza and stuff it in my mouth.
And even though my mom isn’t very good or the best in making us a complete meal, she does know on the other hand how to make a mean mango cream cheese pie, well at least to me. Some days, I just wish I could have a slice of her pie right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment