Mango (quick) Bread

I cant wait for summer to be here. I have a love-hate relation with spring I must say. The first few days of spring, am very happy that winter is behind us but within a few days I get impatient waiting for summer that I start hating spring. Is that weird? I think not. I just love bright sunshine and the warmth and hence call myself a "summer girl". My husband finds this term pretty amusing :-) Maybe its because I am from Chennai or it may just be all the good memories associated with summer: summer vacation, meeting my cousins and of course the mangoes.

One of the delicious memories of summer/mango season is the mango pickle (avakkai) my grandma used to make. My mom and aunts used to gather in one household with my grandma leading the pickle making ceremony !! As a kid it was loads of fun just watching them make the pickle. And at the end of the day after the pickling was done and the cut mangoes had been divided into different jars, we used to get a taste of the fresh pickle in the form of avakkai rice (left over pickling sauce mixed with fresh rice and ghee). It was Oh so tasty, my mouth still waters just at the thought of it.


Another summer favorite of mine is the aamras my mom makes with fresh ripe mangoes. I think the most popular variety that we used to get in Chennai was the Banagenapalli variety - medium-sized round juicy mangoes. I loved the whole process of squeezing the pulp and mushing the whole thing with my hands, juices running all over. Yeh it was messy but I loved the feeling and the aroma. Aamras with fresh chapathi's is a combination that is so typical of my summer days. So anyway - all these nostalgic thoughts put me in the mood for tasting mangoes last week. But imho the mangoes available in the US market is nowhere close to the gorgeous ones we get in India. So whenever I feel a longing for mangoes, I reach for the mango pulp available in Indian stores.

I brought the mango pulp home and was thinking of best way to use it up. Aamras was my first option but we had guests over for the weekend and I wanted to a make some dessert. When browsing through my bookmarked recipes, I came across mango bread from Vaishali's Earth Vegan blog. So I adapted her recipe to a non-vegan version, added some pistachios and cardamom - both very Indian flavors. We all loved the final result - moist luscious mango bread.

Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
1 ts baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup pistachio
1 tsp cardamom powder

5 tbsp butter, softened
1 egg
2 cup mango pulp
1 cup sugar

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 deg. Grease a loaf pan. Set aside.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pistachio, cardamom powder) in a bowl. Set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, add butter and sugar. Mix until well mixed. Now add the eggs and mango pulp. Mix well.
4. Add the dry mixture to the mango mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon just until the dry ingredients are mixed evenly.
5. Pour this mixture into the greased loaf pan. Bake for 50 min or until a toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean.
6. Cool and then slice the bread.
7. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream.

This post will be my entry to Nupur's "The Copycat Edition".

Enjoy !!