Mango Banana Walnut Sweet Bread (Or dare I say Loaf cake?)
It was a very hectic day. To say the least! Juggling the wants and the needs and answering some thought provoking questions leaves one reaching for brain sharpening tools. While I pondered on the questions, the root of the questions and the answers – and needles to say the propensity to answer certain questions with alarming conventional replies, left me wondering if as a parent I am guilty of espousing certain staid rules in the house! Sigh!
While society molds and shapes you to a certain extent, who exactly molds the society? ( My cure -all, solution to many a problem, A cup of ginger chai did not seem to awaken the required neurons to deal with this ). Well a few upcoming events did put a cheer in an otherwise gray day. May be we can make one day of the week a mental flossing day or so ?
In any case, a bit past the required cook time for dinner and me going through the blah phase of the day still, left me frantically scavenging in the refrigerator. There are times, I open the fridge and stare intensely at it, almost willfully wishing for things to appear. Kind of like at Hogwarts , except my house elves are in my imagination !
If only I can channel some of the much required genie powers. Sigh! Well genie powers aside, what I did find was a pack of sprouts , a cucumber and a strange assortments of veggies. And then I saw it. Tucked away in the corner of corner, in the back corner, (you get the idea) a bushelful of champagne mangoes. How in the world did I let this slip by me? No clue, except I had atleast half a dozen mangoes with sweet firm, juicy flesh and a bit wrinkly skin (nope, this is not a metaphor for middle age. People ! Tsk ! Tsk!)
Ah! Dinner, I know. Well, will make do with salad and sandwiches and left overs. But the mangoes had to be skinned and diced. And then inspiration struck. And I yielded to temptation ! So while we had dinner, fresh mango sweet loaf bread was baking in the oven !
Ingredients:
Dry:
- Self rising all-purpose flour : 1 and 3/4 cups
- Baking soda : 3/4 Tsp.
- Ground cardamom: 1 Tsp.
- Saffron threads: A generous pinch
- Chopped walnuts : 1/4 cup
Wet:
- Mashed Banana : 2 large ripe bananas ( approx. 1-1.25 cups) super speckled and very ripe is the best always.
- Firm Mangoes 2-3 : 1.5 -2 cup, finely diced mango flesh
- Brown Crystal sugar : 1/3 cup
- Olive oil : 1/4 cup.
- Egg : 1 ( or substitute with flax seed ratio equivalent to one egg.)
- Plain yogurt : 1/3 cup
Topping :
- Fine diced mangoes : 2 Tbsp.
- Ground cardamom powder: 1/4 Tsp.
- Brown Sugar : 1 Tbsp.
- Chopped Walnuts : 2 Tbsp.
Method:
Prepping and Mixing:
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF
- Grease a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan. I used olive oil spray to grease it.
- Whisk the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl – the self rising APF + baking soda+ cardamom powder + saffron threads and set aside.
- Mash/ Puree the bananas. Add in the egg and whisk it very well. Add in the sugar and whisk it very well . Add in the yogurt and oil and whisk it very well again . Once again, this entire process of mine happened in one jar of magic bullet. You can go the traditional way and use the hand mixer or stand mixer too.
- Fold the flour mix into this very gently.
- Fold in the chopped walnuts reserved in the dry mix section.
- Add in the diced mangoes and fold it gently into the batter. Do not smush it please !
- Spoon the batter into the prepped loaf pan.
Topping:
- Gently toss the diced mangoes and sugar and cardamom powder together so as to coat the pieces very well.
- Top it on the wet batter.
- Add the reserved 2 Tbsp. of chopped walnuts so as to stud the entire top layer
Baking:
- Bake at 350ºF for about 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes clean. Mine was done in 53 minutes.
- Cool for about 10 minutes or so in the pan.
- Transfer to a wire rack. Let it cool down well before cutting into nice thick wedges……
Want to make this Vegan?
- Substitute the egg with flax seeds. One egg equivalent would be 1 Tbsp. of flax seeds ground well in a spice grinder initially. To this add the 3 Tbsp. of warm water and blend together to get a nice creamy mix. Use in place of 1 egg.
- Swap the yogurt for applesauce. Though you might taste more of the apple in the resulting loaf.
Result:
A very fragrant and moist loaf of mango bread ( I probably should say it’s more a sweet bread or morning cake bread consistency) The top layer of the mango was caramelized and the walnuts very toasted and crunchy.
Make no bones about it, this is a special occasion loaf!