The Cake Bible

"She has written Rose’s Heavenly Cakes and The Cake Bible and what you need to know about baking, she knows. Every little trick of the trade to get it perfect, she knows. So, what happened was that I was doing a banquet for 50 to raise funds for my husband’s chamber music group in New England and it was mango season and I wanted a mango cheesecake. She has cheesecake in her book but I wanted something with swirls of mango inside and mango on top. I called her up and she said: ‘I’d love to work that out with you.’ We chatted back and forth for three weeks and kept trying and she has cream cheese, Greek yoghurt and she somehow worked out the creamiest interior with swirls of mango in it and mango purée on top and it is absolutely heavenly. No, it will be in a future book! We worked this out in August. All the cheesecakes in her books are marvellous though. She does one with pumpkin for autumn. You could make it specifically for Thanksgiving. Don’t inundate them with anything. More ginger, little garlic, tiny amount of onion, maybe a bit of cayenne. And a tiny bit of lime juice. You can pan fry it with butter and oil or just put it under the grill but baste it with the oil and butter."