Red Pitaya (Dragon Fruit) Yogurt Mousse Cake

Hi blogger buddies, I am not sure did anyone realise that I actually MIA (Missing in action) from blogosphere for many days. I was sick, actually I should say that I am sick cos still not totally recover yet. Since last thursday, during my 2nd day of business trip, I started with high fever then follow by cough and flu. The sickness got real bad from Friday (my colleague nearly need to lug me back to Singapore hahaha...) and I slept throughout most of the times until Tuesday, I was too sick to do anything else except sleeping :P. I supposed to travel again on Wednesday but have to cancel the trip.

I miss blogging, can you imagine that even though I was so sick and in the dreamland most of the times, I was still able to blog, I blogged in my dream. My friends, I had actually visited your blog in my dream hahaha!


Back to the cake, this was made for my younger sister inlaw's birthday which was last Thursday. I made the cake the night before my trip and initially, I was planning to send her the cake before heading to airport. However I didn't make it due to some delays so I had to get her to collect the cake from my place.

My sister inlaw is quite a health consious lady, she doesn't have sweet tooth, she is not dessert and cakes kind of person. So I had some head cracking on what to bake for her birthday. I decided that I should bake her something with fruits, definately is a better choice than chocolate or cream cake.


But what fruit? Although she eats lots of fruits but I remember she still has some restriction on certain fruits e.g. mango (she was on some chinese medication that she said have to avoid mango), pineapple (she read from book that pineapple is not so good for our body but I can't recall what is the reason) etc, there might be other restricted fruits that I am not aware.

I remember she had shared the benefits of dragon fruits with my mother inlaw before and there was a period, my mother inlaw got influenced by her that she drank blended dragon fruit juice with some other health supplement almost everyday. I scanned through my memeory and I remember this Red Pitaya Mousse Cake from My Birthday Cake by Kelvin Chai. Freezed red pitaya mousse cake is just perfect since my sister inlaw do eat ice-cream occasionally :).

There are generally 2 types of dragon fruits selling in supermarket, one is white flesh which is more common, another type is red flesh which is more juicy, sweeter and expensive than white flesh dragon fruits. The nutritional benefits of dragon fruits include help to lower blood glucose levels in type 2 diabetes and its high antioxidant amounts and vitamin C levels. (info extracted from http://dragonfruitpitaya.com/dragonfruit_health_benefits/)

A few weeks before her birthday, whenever I went to supermarket to buy fruits, I will surely search for red pitaya in red flesh, just to ensure this fruit is easily accessable. Without fail, I was able to spot it everytime. However, when it was time for me to purchase this fruit, I was not able to find it. I went to a few NTUC and Shop N Save, Giant, all the supermarket that nearby my office and home, only white flesh dragon fruits are available but I want the red fresh dragon fruits!


I nearly give up, I have to find for back up plan. During my last try at another Giant, I found it, the last one at the fruit counter. The uncle told me that was the only one they left cos the stock didn't come in that day. I forgot how much red pitaya that I need for the recipe but I just grabbed it and I bought hami melon as my back up plan.

I was lucky this time, the fruit was just enough for the recipe YEAH! I cut down the whipped cream and replaced by non-fat yogurt so to make it more healthy. I cut down the sugar as well for both the sponge cake and mousse to make it suitable for my sister inlaw's taste bud.

And since my sister inlaw has changed her diet to vegetarian (she still consume fishes) about 2 years ago for healthy reason, I dare not use gelatin for the mousse. So I googled and used aga aga powder as subsitution. Luckily, the cake was still able to set nicely.


I spared some red pitaya and cut into cubes wanted to add in the mousse but I forgot! I only realised it after I covered the mousse with the last layer of sponge cake and saw a bowl of cubes red pitaya! Argh, why am I so forgetful!!!! I wanna salvage the situation, I removed the last layer of sponge cake slowly from the mousse and added all the cubes red pitaya in the 2nd layer of mousse. So there will be only one layer of mousse comes with cubes fruit but better than none right.

Another hiccup was the red pitaya glazing to cover the cake. I bought the decogel from Phoon Huat a few weeks ago and when I opened it that night, I realised there was a layer of mold at the center of the decogel. Hello, that was an unopen bottle that I just bought a few weeks ago, how come so fast got moldy? I am so regretted now that I had threw the decogel away, I should bring back and question Phoon Huat about it:(. I tried replacing the decogel with aga aga powder but the glazing was very watery instead of jam texture as per the picture shown in the recipe book. I dare not take the chances so I decided to omit the glazing.

So sweet and thoughtful of my sister inlaw, she email me the photos of the cut out cake
to share with my readers after she saw my posting. She also posted the cake in her blog as well, if you are interested on vegetarian food, you may drop by her blog to take a look :).

I didn't use the sponge cake recipe from Kelvin Chai but used this instead.

Ingredients :
For Sponge Cake : Adapted from Foodhouse88
70g plain flour
2 eggs
15g milk
50g caster sugar
1 tbsp glucose
1 tsp vanilla extra
salt 2g
15g oil
1/2 tsp baking soda

Method :
1. Sift flour and baking soda.
1. Beat eggs, sugar and salt on medium speed till foamy.
3. Add in glucose and continue beat till 5 times in volume and ribbon-like.
4. Add in sifted flour and baking soda, beat on LOW speed till mix well.
5. Mix oil and milk and pour 1/3 of the batter and mix well.
6. Pour the milk batter to the remaining flour batter and mix well
7. Pour batter in a round pan and bake for 20 - 30mins at 180c.
7. Remove from the oven and invert the pan immediately. Let cool completely before unmould.

For the Filling : Adapted from My Birthday Cake by Kelvin Chai.
Red Pitaya Sauce :
200g red pitaya fresh (chopped)
100g caster sugar (I reduced to 50g)
2 tbsp lemon juice

Red Pitaya Mousse :
2 tsp gelatin powder (I replaced with 2 tsp aga aga powder)
2 tbsp hot water
200g fresh cream (whipped) I reduced to 100g & replaced by 150g non-fat plain yogurt
2 tbsp kirsch (I replaced by vanilla extract)

Red Pitaya Gel : (I omitted it)
50g red pitaya sauce
100g decogel

To make sauce : bring chopped red pitaya, sugar and lemon juice to boil for 5 mins until mixture slightly thickens. Remove from heat and leave to cool.

To make mousse : stir aga aga powder into hot water or stirring over simmering water until melt. add in 150g of red pitaya sauce and mix well. Fold in whipped cream, yogurt and vanilla extract.

To make glaze gel : stir red pitaya sauce with decogel until mix well. Glaze over the cake.

To assemble : Line cling wrap inside a big bowl. Pour in half of mousse, cover with a slice of sponge cake. Pour the balance mousse and cover with the last slice of sponge cake. Wrap well and freeze for 4 hours or over night.