KARACHI: “I have hollowed out the cupcakes as much as I could with a little knife and now I am going to fill them up with mango puree. The hole I had made on top of the cupcakes I will hide while decorating it with mango icing,” said Shaista Imran, a young chef in training at the College of Tourism and Hotel Management (COTHM), the organisers of the ‘Mangofiecient’, a festival of mango desserts which opened in the food court of a mall here on Wednesday.

According to Syed Azhar Jamil of COTHM the festival features 54 under-training chefs from the institution, who have formed some 19 groups that have come up with the dessert menus. “The main ingredient in all desserts has to be mango, of course, as it is in line with the theme of the festival,” said Mr Jamil. “You will find here cakes, tarts, muffins, cookies, smoothies, shakes, etc, all made from mango,” he added.

The various desserts were also given some creative names all to do with mangos, of course, such as ‘Hum Aam Aadmi Hain’, ‘It Takes Two to Tango’, ‘Mango Madness’, etc.

Going around the tables where the young chefs were busy preparing the desserts and drinks one could only see the Sindhri mango. “Well, it is the best among all mango varieties right now,” said Farida Huzaifa who was decorating a cake with mango cream roses.

Pealing a mango with a potato peeler, young Shabi Hussain said that they had only a day to plan their menus. “After forming teams and coming up with menus we also prepared a few desserts which were tasted by our teachers. Some they liked very much and some they didn’t like at all. So we tried to improve on them here,” he said.

Amatullah Lokhand, meanwhile, shared her team’s menu which included ‘hibiscus tea with wild mango fusion of ginger soda’ and ‘Mango chia seed and coconut pudding’. “We wanted to innovate keeping some healthy recipes and ingredients in mind,” she said.

The festival of mango desserts concludes on Friday.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2019