Honey Apple Mango bread

I made this up to enter a contest on Manjula’s Kitchen site for a desert that incorporates apples. I could have used just apples but I was in a mood for something a bit more complicated. So Honey Apple Mango it is!

Hey, at least I controlled myself enough not to drop in the raisins I was contemplating adding as well.

I would normally have made this with egg but the contest rules specified eggless, so I used apple-banana baby food to replace the eggs. You could use real mashed bananas or applesauce or any combination thereof, but I keep the baby food on hand for small tasks like this because (a) it’s handy and (b) I have a bazillion uses for baby food jars and never have any on hand. I would have preferred to use just plain banana baby food in this case because you get better binding from bananas, and frankly probably real bananas would have been best, but just about anything in the apple-banana line as an egg replacement would do.

I seriously contemplated using the silken tofu, but when push came to shove, I just wasn’t ready to try it. Besides, I really need some baby food jars – I’m out of empty small jars and I have stuff to put in ’em!

It made a nice, moist loaf. Next time I would leave the chunks a little larger – I diced them about the size of, well, actual dice. You can see chunks in the bread but they cooked quite thoroughly, so larger chunks would have been fine.

It came out great:

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 T (one stick, 1/2 c) SOFTENED butter
• 2/3 c brown sugar
• 1 T vanilla
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 heaping tsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 T honey
• 2 T mango puree (OPTIONAL)
• 2 eggs OR add 1 tsp baking powder to dry ingredients plus one of the following
  • 1/2 c silken tofu (blended with the rest of the liquids)
  • 1/2 c mashed bananas
  • 1/2 c applesauce
  • 1/2 c (about 1 4oz size jar) banana/apple baby food
• 1 medium size apple, peeled, cored, and cubed
• large ripe mango, pitted, peeled, and cubed
• 10 oz by weight All Purpose flour

 
In case you don’t know how to peel a mango, watch this video.

Learn more about how to handle mangos here

I used the baby food option for this. I think the mashed bananas as a substitute for the eggs would have been a little better maybe, but I didn’t have any bananas, so baby food it was!

DIRECTIONS:

1. Take out one stick (4 oz, 1/2 c) butter to let it soften. GIVE IT SOME TIME – a couple hours in advance at least.
2. Preheat the oven to 350F.
3. Cream together butter, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Yes, all at once, it works out just fine! Beat til it has a smooth consistency.
4. Add the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the apples, mango, and flour, and beat till smooth again. I do this in my Kitchenaid stand mixer with the wire whip.
5. Replace the wire whip with the beater blade, scrape the bowl down, and stir in the diced fruit, just to incorporate.
6. Stir in the flour on a low speed, stirring just to mix. You want a smooth mixture but don’t over beat it or it will be heavy and dense.
7. Grease a 9×5 loaf pan (I use vegetable shortening and a Pyrex pan, but butter or veg. oil would work) and pour the batter in. Smooth the top so it’s more or less even-ish.
8. Bake in a 350 F oven for 55 mins to an hour, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cover the top with foil towards the end if it is browning too fast.
9. Let cool, slice and serve.

 
Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with the remaining 2 3/4c of mango pulp…. oh, the burdens of the baker!