Moist and delicious with the added flavor and deep golden color of pureed fresh mango, this cheerful mango pound cake will brighten up any table!
I like to cook and bake with foods that are in season as much as I can. But in the middle of February in Michigan, sometimes I need to just let that go and bake something with tropical fruit! Sometimes we just need that burst of flavor and color, and thank goodness tropical fruits are available to us in February if we want them. (My local grocery store even has mangoes on sale right now!) The sweet bright flavor of mango adds a burst of joy to this beautiful mango pound cake.
Cooking shows are some of my favorite things to watch on TV. We don’t watch a lot of TV in my household, but when we are home and want to relax in the evenings, my husband and I sometimes turn on PBS and look for cooking shows and travel shows. That is how I found the inspiration for this delicious mango pound cake. We were watching Pati’s Mexican Table recently, and Pati made this beautiful, yet quite easy, mango pound cake while her main dish was cooking.
I love her show. Her enthusiasm for food is inspiring, and I love the way she embraces food as a way to bring family and friends together. And this mango pound cake is right up my alley because it can be made fairly quickly, yet the mango makes it special and fun. I found the recipe on her website and tried it. The cake turned out great–moist and flavorful, and I will definitely make it again.
The weather here is supposed to be quite warm (for winter time, anyway) and sunny this weekend. After a pretty gray few weeks, I am looking forward to getting out into the sun! It has been a strange winter here, with lots of rain and not much snow. We have not been able to do our usual winter outdoor activities. I think a lot of us are a bit deprived of the benefits of sunlight. But this morning, this sunrise was just beautiful.
And it looks like we will have at least a couple days more of sunshine! I hope you all have a great weekend, and hope you get a chance to get out in the sun. I think that is why I was drawn to this mango pound cake–mangoes taste like sunshine to me. I will be sharing this recipe over at Angie’s virtual potluck Fiesta Friday, co-hosted this week by Zeba @ Food For The Soul and Jhuls @ The Not So Creative Cook. 
Mango Pound Cake
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus a little more for greasing the pan
- 1 and 1/3 cups of granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 and 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, plus a little more for dusting the pan
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon of course sea salt
- 1 and 3/4 cups of diced fresh mango (about 2 mangoes) or thawed from frozen
- 1/4 cup of buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon of almond extract
- confectioners’ sugar for dusting the top (optional)
- fresh berries for garnish (optional)
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan and lightly dust it with flour.
In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until soft, for about 2 minutes. Add the sugar and continue to beat for about 5 more minutes, until the mixture is soft and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth and creamy, about 2 more minutes.
In another large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Place the diced mango, buttermilk, vanilla extract and almond extract in a blender. Puree until very smooth.
In four additions, add the flour mixture and the mango mixture, little by little, to the bowl with the butter mixture, beating after each addition, and alternating adding the wet and dry ingredients. Beat on low speed or gently with a spoon. Mix just until everything is completely combined, but be careful not to over-mix.
Spoon the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake in your 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cake is lightly golden brown on top, springs back when touched, and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center.
Allow the cake to cool. When it is cool, flip it upside down on a board and then turn it right side up onto a platter. Dust the top generously with confectioners’ sugar. Or, just leave it in the pan and cut slices from the pan, if desired. Enjoy!
This recipe is adapted from Pati Jinich @ patijinich.com.
The sweetness of the blueberries and black raspberries (and some sugar) balance the tartness of the cherries to make a mouth-watering fruit filling full of flavor and those much-sought-after antioxidants. The biscuit topping is golden and moist, pairing beautifully with the fruit. I really notice a difference in taste when I bake with high quality butter, and butter from grass-fed cows is gaining popularity as a relatively healthy fat. With just a few basic ingredients, this cobbler is easy to make and tastes impressive.
My favorite thing about this dessert, aside from the luscious flavor, is that much of the fruit came from my very own yard! Our wonderful cherry trees gave us even more fruit than we expected, allowing me to make two cobblers, a few batches of breakfast jars, and a smoothie with them, and our black raspberries are coming along nicely! I wish I could say I picked the blueberries in this cobbler, but those I did buy from the grocery store, yet they were still sweet and juicy. In any case, seasonal fruit tastes better than candy in my book, and it reminds me to savor the moment, because each season is fleeting.
I hope you are all having a great summer so far. It has been very sunny, but much drier than usual here lately. We finally got some rain last night, and the air smells so fresh, especially since the storms cooled things off. We had an interesting Fourth of July–we got to go for a sail with my brother’s family in his boat, out to a sandbar near a small island. He put down the anchor and we all went swimming off of the boat in gorgeous, cold, clear water. That evening, we hiked a mile at dusk to the top of a hill in a nature preserve, overlooking a lake. Someone from the preserve had a campfire going, and we roasted marshmallows and ate s’mores while the fireworks showered dazzling colors over the lake. Then we hiked down in the dark woods by flashlight. It was amazing to be surrounded by so much natural beauty, up in northern Michigan for a few days.
