Recipe: Summer Mango Bread

Summer is mango season in Hawaiʻi, thus mangos abound. Residents with backyard trees share mangos with their friends and neighbors and cook, or bake, with them any way they can. Mango bread is a classic staple in Hawaiʻi, but can be made anywhere in the world where you can get your hands on some juicy, ripe mangos.

The following recipe is an adaptation of chef Sheldon Simeonʻs Tropical Fruit Bread recipe in his 2021 cookbook, “Cook Real Hawaiʻi.” The changes I made are fairly minimal. I changed the cinnamon to dried ginger, removed the crumble on top to cut back on the amount of sugar in the recipe and used 100% mango instead of a mix of mango, banana and guava, because the latter two ingredients are not nearly as good on the continent as an apple banana or strawberry guava grown in Hawaiʻi.

Photo: Sarah Burchard

Summer Mango Bread

Yield: 1 loaf

*Important note: For me, this recipe produced more batter than what would fit into a standard loaf pan if I left room for the bread to rise. If you end up with extra too I suggest transferring the rest to a muffin pan, lined with cupcake liners, and baking until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 30 to 40 minutes.

Ingredients:

• butter and flour for pan
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup cornstarch
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• ½ tsp. Diamond Crystal kosher salt
• 8 T. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 ½ cups (2-3 each) ripe mango, peeled, diced and mashed with a fork

Directions:

Adjust oven rack to middle position of oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Butter and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan, tapping out excess flour.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, ginger and salt. In a KitchenAid with the whisk attachment or large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Once combined, add mango, cup by cup, mixing after each addition. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour mixture until fully incorporated and smooth. Avoid over mixing which will make the bread gummy and dense.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan until it reaches 1-inch from the top. (*See note at the top.) Bake for 30 minutes, rotate the pan and bake another 30 minutes more, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the bread in the pan on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes. Invert the bread onto the wire rack and continue cooling completely.

To store, wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate after one day.