Psy­cho­lo­gists will have you believe that the quick­est way to evoke the past is to play the music you listened to between the ages of four­teen and twenty, oth­er­wise known as ‘music of your life’. The Rolling Stones, Robert Palmer, Bruce Spring­steen — pos­sibly Engel­bert Hump­erdinck if that was your thing — will all evoke memor­ies of what you were doing at a pre­cise moment in your teens. But psy­cho­lo­gists are miss­ing a trick. They should be feed­ing us the boiled sweets of our teen­age years. ‘Con­fec­tion­ery of your life’ is made up of the sher­bet lem­ons after foot­ball prac­tice, tri-coloured lol­li­pops called ‘traffic lights’ sucked at the bus stop, kitsch pink candy shrimps in party bags, pear drops on a wintry Sunday morn­ing and, best of all, the glory known as the chocol­ate lime.

It was in memory of the liv­idly green and slightly powdery chocol­ate lime that I whipped up this pud­ding. It’s infin­itely health­ier than its boiled sweet cousin, although it has to be said that it’s a lot more trouble to pre­pare. But close your eyes, think of get­ting ready for that first teen­age disco with a chocol­ate lime in one cheek and high expect­a­tions in your heart. And then smile smugly to think that unlike the enamel-eroding boiled sweet, this pud­ding is good for you.

Frozen Mango Glasses and Lime Ice-Cream, With Bit­ter Chocol­ate Truffles on the Side

Serves 4

For the glasses

400g ripe alphonso mangos

For the ice cream

3 limes — the juice of three of them and the zest of two

Half cup vanilla sugar

2 cups double cream

For the truffles

Half cup double cream

3 table­spoons golden syrup

90g dark chocolate

90g milk chocolate

Quarter cup milled flax­seed, cocoa and ber­ries, plus more for rolling

These quant­it­ies make too much by far, but the slightly nutty truffle mix­ture is a deli­cious filling for a cake

Sprigs of mint to decorate

Puree the man­goes in a blender and pour into cup-making moulds for at least 6 hours. I bought these moulds in a kit­chen sup­ply shop and although they’re rather daft, some­times a flashy trick is what you’re after.

Make the ice cream by warm­ing the lime juice and stir­ring in the sugar. Stir until dis­solved and add the fine zest and the cream. Cool in the fridge and then tip into your ice cream maker and fol­low the instruc­tions. Again, it makes too much for this par­tic­u­lar recipe but it keeps well.

The truffles are easy to make, although truc­u­lent and unco­oper­at­ive on a hot day. Add the cream and golden syrup to a pan and heat until the mix­ture starts to bubble gently. Melt the chocol­ate into the mix­ture and once it’s smooth, add the flax­seed and cocoa. Freeze in a bowl for a couple of hours and then scoop out balls of the mix­ture with a tea­spoon and roll them in more flax­seed. Return the truffles to the freezer while you wrestle with the mango glasses.

Turn the glasses out of their moulds, fill with lime ice cream and arrange the truffles on the side. Dec­or­ate with sprigs of mint. I poked a lovage straw in to suck up the mango as it melted, but I’m rather obsessed with lovage at the moment, so you don’t need to fol­low my lead on this one.

• Share
• Tweet

Related posts: