Mango Flaxseed Bread

Hooray!! It is Mango Flaxseed Bread season!

I have always been a big fan of quick breads.  They are, as stated in the name, quicker than regular bread, and they taste like cake. WIN.  Mango flaxseed bread is a great summer alternative to your autumn pumpkin bread, or whenever you can get mangoes in season where you live.  And the flaxseeds help, at least in my mind, increase the nutritional content of what is essentially a dense cake perfect for breakfast, or afternoon snack.  It even holds its own as a post dinner dessert.

You want to start with three or four ripe mangoes.  Kind of like with bananas and avocados, you may have to buy them several days before you plan to use them so that they will be ripe, or, like me, you might consider adopting a rule that if there are ripe mangoes or avocados for sale at a great price that you adjust your menu and make guacamole, or in this case, mango flaxseed bread.

So, a quick word about flax seeds. I usually keep ground flaxseeds in my fridge so that they are conveniently available to throw into a variety of things, from breads to yogurt.  If you get them whole, make sure you grind them in a spice or coffee grinder before adding to the batter so that you get the full benefit of the omega 3 oils and fiber.

While you certainly can use whatever spices you have on hand, I think that the use of fresh ginger really makes this recipe pop.  I keep it in the freezer (since fresh ginger spoils quickly even in the fridge) so that I can add it in small quantities whenever I need it.  I use a microplane to finely grate the ginger and the nutmeg into the batter.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons fresh ginger
½ teaspoon fresh nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups brown sugar
3 eggs
½ cup melted unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 or 4 mashed mangoes (about 2 cups, but if it is a little bit more if certainly won’t hurt it)
½ cup ground flax seeds

Preparation:

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees and setting out your eggs so that they have a chance to warm up to room temperature. Next wash your mangoes and peel the skin off with a paring knife.  Once the mangoes are peeled you can use the same knife to start removing the fruit from the pit.  Don’t worry about cutting perfect strips because once you get the fruit off the pit you are going to chop it finely to a chunky mashed texture.  When you get that finished set it aside in a bowl.

Combine all your dry ingredients, including the spices in a separate bowl.

 

Next melt your butter and add the butter and vanilla to your mangoes.  One by one add an egg and incorporate it to your fruit before adding the next.  When you have all your wet ingredients mixed in one bowl, and all the dry ingredients mixed in another, slowly add about a cup at a time of the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients.  Fully mix in each cup of dry ingredients before adding your next, until you have incorporated all ingredients. 

The batter will be very sticky and dense, almost dry, although depending on how juicey your mangoes are this could vary.

Lightly grease two bread loaf pans, and divide the batter between them using a spatula to push the batter into the corners of the pan.  Place the pans in the center of your oven and bake for about 45 to 55 minutes, or whenever you can put a knife in it and pull it out clean.  Pull the pans out and let them cool for about 10 minutes before inverting them on a plate to remove the pans and then let them cool completely, if you can stand it.  Or slice them up, spread just a touch of butter on them, and enjoy the hot mango goodness hot from the oven.

It is a good thing there are two loaves, because you may devor one hot from the oven before it even cools