A light buttery batter studded with ripe mangoes, tasty pecans and sweet cinnamon sugar… Yum. This was incredibly quick and easy to make. Totally worth the minimal effort. We had an abundance of ripening mangoes and some leftover pecans from the holiday season so this was a perfect use of the ingredients on hand. I was leafing through a Barefoot Contessa cookbook, “how easy is that?” and spied a recipe for a fresh peach cake that I thought might work really well with some ripe mangoes. Ina Garten is an extremely well purchased cookbook author precisely because her recipes are so easy and approachable, and they taste good. Nothing complicated in the recipes she publishes, but they always seem to work and provide good results for the time and effort invested. So full credit for the recipe as it is used here goes to Ms. Garten, and the only thing I did was switch ripe Cebuano mangoes for the peaches, and put lots more fruit than was called for in the original recipe…
In a bowl of an electric mixer, cream 1/2 cup of butter (I used Plugra, which helped to make this extra special), 1 cup of sugar for some 3-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add 2 extra large eggs, one at a time and wait for each egg to be fully incorporated into the batter before adding the next one. Add 1 cup of sour cream and a reaspoon of vanilla and mix until smooth. Prepare the dry ingredients in a separate bowl: sift together 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until just incoporated. It is critical that you don’t overmix the batter. In another smaller bowl, mix 1/2 cup white sugar with 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and set this aside. Chop a cup of unsalted and roasted pecans. Remove the flesh of 4-5 medium to large mangoes and cube the flesh. In retrospect, I suspect slightly under ripe (say a day shy of being at its peak) mangoes would be nice too, with a hint of sourness along with all of the sweetness, set this aside and assemble the cake for baking.
Lightly butter or grease a 9x9inch baking dish. Spread half of the batter on the bottom of the pan. Top this with half of the peeled and cubed mangoes, spreading them evenly over the batter. Sprinkle half of the chopped pecans and half of the sugar and cinnamon mixture over the fruit. Add the remaining half of the batter and spread evenly. Add the remaining mangoes, pecans and sugar mixture. Bake in a pre-heated 350F oven for roughly 45-50 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Perfect with either brewed coffee or a large pot of tea. It takes so little effort to make, you can start it just 1.5 hours before you have guests over for merienda and it will be freshly baked. Or make it at night and serve it for breakfast or brunch the next morning. This is a simple cake, but it has all the right notes of butter, sugar, fruit, nuttiness and sugar/cinnamon goodness. I suspect it would work nicely with other fruit as well.
44 Responses
mukhang masarap talaga. gutom na naman ako.
MM, what a great timing! I was just browsing for a good recipe for mango cake.
Thanks :))))
Hi MM! Looks fantastic!! Do you know where I can find Plugra here in Manila? Many thanks!
I adore Ina Garten. Even if paulit-ulit na ang Barefoot Contessa sa Lifestyle Network I still watch and each time I watch I can’t help myself but dream of switching kitchens with her. Loved her to bits.
That looks incredibly toothsome! I’ll give this a try one of these days..
Gosh ang sarap!!!! :-) Mangoes for peaches. Good idea.
so yummy, and drooling now to have a slice…how i wish to taste ;D
Looks yum, MM! I totally agree about Ina Garten. She’s my favorite. Her recipes do not intimidate and I like how she’s not too fussy.
Ohh, what I would do to eat that right now and have me a cup of tea :) Drool on my keyboard.
You are as bad as I am…on a diet and baking! :-)
ay ang sarap naman. to think, i was craving for butter cake a few hours ago. now i want that! :)
I can do this, but I’ll use peaches instead :)) I’ll also bake a gluten free version for myself.
OMG!! *drools* MM, Can I have that for breakfast? lol I love Ina Garten. I have a collection of her recipe books and I have tried several of her recipes. Like what you said Ina’s recipes are tasty & easy to follow.
MM, can you buy Plugra in the Philippines? Last time I was there, I baked Challah (using a tried & tested recipe) but it came out a mess. I figured that the butter had more water content than I am used to. Would also like to make Sans Rival next time I visit.
i can almost taste that. i’d take mangoes over peaches anytime!
This will definitely be on my to-do list once i find a good supply of mangoes and pecans! :)
I’m also a great fan of the Barefoot contessa, love her recipes and I have a collection of all her cookbooks!
Looks yummy! I’m planning to buy an electric mixer and been eyeing a KitchenAid, what kind or brand of electric mixer do you use, MM? :)
ECC,
Bring your own butter and bread flour from the US. Whatever is available in Manila is less than satisfactory. Wrap butter in a cold pack and place in your suitcase. The hold of the plane is about 45 F so your butter should arrive still cold and firm after 24 hrs in transit. Flour I put into a balikbayan box. The better bakeries in Manila import their own flour.
Oh my… I could just imagine how soft and buttery this cake is. *drool*
That looks so good! I love Barefoot Contessa. I watch her show all the time. (admittedly, I seldom actually try her recipes.) I love mangoes so much more than peaches so I would really like to try that but sweet ripe mangoes are hard to come by here in California. We have the Mexican mangoes that aren’t sweet enough or have to wait for just the right season to be able to get the small asian mangoes from asian stores.
Thank you so much for the advice, Sister. I will do just that.
You don’t need a taster for this, but I would like to volunteer! Taste test!
The plugra butter came from NY, courtesy of Sister in her checked in luggage. Great for baking. She also brought some Kerry Gold for spreading on your toast… And yes, bread flour from the U.S. does seem to be much better than local bread flour…
oh…mangoes & pecans…with plugra butter..it must be divine!
MM, did you use a le crueset dish to bake this cake? Does it bake better than pyrex dish?
juli, I took out the first square 9×9 inch ceramic dish I could find. But now that I checked it, it is in fact a Le Creuset ceramic dish. Not sure why we have it, I can’t recall buying it unless it was on a massive sale… or a give away for the bigger pots purchased. I don’t think it makes much of a difference here, and a pyrex dish should work just fine…
can i replace the pecans with walnuts?
Thanks for this, MM! I am starting to bake again since I have now been allowed to go down to the kitchen (after being cooped up in my room for nearly 2 months! :). I am going to make this soon. I am thinking if it will work out fine if I will make this as an upside down cake …. :), rather than having the mango and nuts in between the layers :)
MM, I wonder if this would work with Cebu dried mangoes soaked in a little water? The Mexican mangoes available here just do not come close to ours :(
ykmd, it might work with soaked dried mangoes, but you have to get them pretty soft… what about soaking in good tanduay rhum, or brandy? :) Carol, I have always wanted to do a classic upside down cake but with mangoes, but I have always wondered if they would be too watery… the only way to find out is to experiment, I guess. :) lalaine, yes you can use walnuts… I just find that pecans have a more distinct flavor and we had some handy in the fridge.
Thanks, MM, that’s my apprehension, too. Sige, I will let you know about my experiment – I plan to do this in the coming week! :)
Just needed pecans and sour cream-got those from Trader Joe’s today and I’m all set to experiment! Will let you know how it turns out :)
mm is there any substitute for sour cream? i have all the ingredients on hand and the walnuts too for the pecans. i will make it this week on a 9×9 pan instead of a square dish. please help. thanks
Thanks for sharing this recipe! Might make this for my mom’s birthday.
MM, the cake was a hit! There were some chewy pieces (probably the slices cut too close to the seed) but they actually added a nice textural contrast as well :) I had some vanilla sugar so used that instead of adding vanilla, and the topping caramelized really well. I will definitely make this again and again. Thanks!
Big hit too! I made mango balls to make the top more interesting visually for my little boy but these pieces were too large for my liking. Maybe half a ball would’ve been better. My kitchen assistant made a mistake and sifted the cinnamon in with the other dry ingredients but cake was still yummy. Recipe is a keeper.
that looks wonderful. I love mango and pecans.
Where’d you buy your pecans MM?
AB, these pecans were brought in by my Sister from NY, however, there are pecans for sale at S&R, sweetcraft & other baking supplies stores, and good groceries.
Hi MM…I tried cooking this recipe last weekend. It was good! But I have to improve the appearance as I was not able to put the topping evenly :(. In addition, the color is pale compared to your golden cake. It’s probably the butter…I used Lurpak ..the only unsalted butter available here. Thanks a lot for sharing the recipe.
Hi MarketMan. Do you have any suggestions on what would be the best brand that can substitute Plurga butter here in the philippines? Magnolia unsalted Butter, Lurpak, Anchor ? Also, I have walnuts in my pantry, should it really be stored in the fridge? Thanks for your time.
Donna, any good unsalted butter should be okay, Lurpak or Anchor maybe. And yes, walnuts or any nuts do go rancid quickly in warm weather, so they should be refrigerated or in the freezer, better. Unless they are canned and vacuum packed, in which case maybe they last longer. But nuts in a hot pantry will be pretty awful after a month or two. Some nuts spoil faster than others.
Have lots of mangoes so was looking for a recipe and found this. Will try this, this evening as very warm today. Yippee!!! Will bring the cake to the picnic with friends at Peace Arch Park.