Eggless Mango Chocolate Marble Cake

This cake was made for my aunt’s birthday dinner by my cousin and I.  It came out really well, nice and light and compact.  The brown and yellow swirls provide a nice contrast, the nuts texture… A perfect recipe to share.

Ingredients:

All Purpose flour –  2 cups
Baking powder – 1 and 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp
Salt – 1/4 tsp
Sugar – 3/4 cup
Oil – 5 tbsp
Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
Cocoa powder (unsweetened) – 1/4 cup ( dissolved in 2/3 tbsp of warm water)
Mango Pulp – 1 cup ( If you use fresh mango pulp you probably should pass through strainer to eliminate fibers)
Milk – 1/4 cup
Buttermilk / Yoghurt  – 1/4 cup
Chopped nuts – 1/3 cup

Method :

• In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar & oil then to this add mango pulp, milk, yogurt, vanilla, buttermilk and mix well.
• In another small bowl, combine the dry ingredients of flour, baking soda, baking powder & salt.
• Add the dry ingredient mixture to wet, mixing well.
• In a small bowl combine cocoa powder and warm water to make a paste.
• Transfer half the mango batter to another bowl, add cocoa paste, mix well.
• Grease and line a pan with parchment paper.  Alternatively you can grease a 8 /2 inch square non-stick baking pan well, and flour it, which we did.
•  There are a variety of methods to get the marbling effect.  We dropped the plain mango and mango chocolate batter alternatively in a checker board pattern for the first layer.  For the second we placed the tbsp. of mango batter on cocoa batter and a tbsp of cocoa batter on mango batter.  Complete rest of the batter alternating the batters to make a checker patter. Then make a swirl. For the swirl, you can draw a vertical line from left to right, next line right to left an inch apart from the previous one and then left to right again, an inch part from the previous line. You get the idea. Similarly draw horizontal lines top to bottom, bottom to top, top to bottom an inch apart from each line. Then tap baking pan to level the batter.
• Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until you put in a toothpick and it comes out cleanly.

Notes :

We didn’t use vanilla essence and it came out well.  The nuts were our choice and not included in the original recipe.

Chunky Fresh Mango Cake

Mangos are plentiful now in Goa, and so the idea of mango cake came up.  My cousin Preeti and I found this recipe on the web and made it.  It turned out really well, serving 8.

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup canola oil
• 2 egg
• 1 cup plus 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cup chopped peeled mango
• 1/2 cup chopped cashew nuts

Directions

1. In a small bowl, beat the sugar, oil and egg until well blended. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg; gradually beat into sugar mixture and mix well. Fold in mango and cashew nuts.
2. Transfer to a greased 6-in. round baking pan. Bake at 375° for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes – If you use fibrous mango you should sieve the pulp first before using otherwise you will get mango fibers in the final cake.  The original recipe from the taste of home website used pecans, but we used what we had, cashew nuts.  Do not hesitate to experiment with the recipe, using alternatives such as a different oil if you do not have canola.  You could add additional spices, or raisins.  Your options are only limited by your imagination.

Mango Pudding

Today we combine a tropical fruit and cold climate dessert to get mango pudding.  Mango pudding is typically served cold and takes just 15 or so minutes of prep to make.

Ingredients:

• Mango pulp: 30/32oz can or 4 cups (1 cup typically works out to one medium large mango)
• Coconut milk: 14oz can or 5/3 cups (1 cup is about 2.8 fl oz.)
• 2 gelatin packets (3.6g)
• 3/4 cup hot water
• 1 cup sugar

Combine mango pulp and coconut milk together.  Boil water and add gelatin.  (Sprinkle gelatin while stirring with whisk to prevent clumping.) Add sugar.  Add this mixture to mango/coconut milk while stirring.  This is it – 15 minutes and you are about done!

Pour the combined mixture in individual dessert bowls, or large dish, or however you wish to present the pudding.  Put the pudding container(s) in fridge to set and cool for at least 2 hours.  I typically make it the previous day.

Serve direct from fridge. Bon Appetit!

Please note that this is a forgiving recipe.  The amounts I have used and enumerated above are based on how the ingredients I bought were packaged.  You can make substitutions also such as fruit pectin instead of gelatin.

7/4/2013  I made this for a 4th of July get together and got great reviews.  Everyone liked it.  My next iteration is going to be substituting honey for sugar as I think that a “honey mango” flavor will work well.