Mango muffins

This is a mango muffin recipe that actually tastes of mango – rarer than you might think! With two big mangoes, the puree flavours the batter and keeps the muffin moist, then lots of chopped mango is stirred in. It domes tall, has a crunchy top and lovely hint of coconut flavour.

Mango muffins

Every mango muffin I’ve tried in the past barely tastes of mango, and that includes my own attempts. You can’t just stir chopped mango into a basic muffin mixture, and one mango isn’t enough for 12 muffins – that’s hardly any mango per muffin!!!

So this year, I set my sights on finally nailing a recipe. With mango puree in the batter and chopped mango stirred in, you will need two BIG ripe mangoes for these muffins. You really need a combination of both puree and mango pieces because there’s only so much puree the batter can take before it turns into bad pudding-like mush (1 cup was the limit). There’s also only so much chopped mango you can add before the muffin starts falling apart (2 cups was the limit).

They dome up beautifully, have a crunchy top, and the inside is soft with – yup, you guessed it – GREAT MANGO FLAVOUR!! I also added coconut flavour into this. Because coconut plus mango just works. 🙂

Ingredients in mango muffins

First, let’s talk mangoes!

Mangoes for muffins

These muffins will only be as good as the mangoes you use. We want sweet and juicy, because the sweetness and moistness of the muffins relies on ripe mangoes.

My favourite is honey gold mangoes (picture above) – richest, sweetest flavour – though R2E2’s are a close second (the giant ones!). Kensington pides and palmer are a little tangier and Keitt’s have a little milder mango flavour. Calypso brings up the rear – they always look the prettiest at grocery stores but they have the least mango flavour. (PS I’m in Australia, these are our most common mango varieties).

Frozen mango can also be used. I’ve included directions in the recipe.

Muffin ingredients

And here’s what you need for the batter.

• Plain flour (all-purpose flour) – Not self raising flour which already has baking powder built in. Generally speaking, cakes and muffins don’t rise as nicely and the crumb is not as soft. Better to add your own rising agent.
• Baking soda (bi-carbonate) – Speaking of which, this is what we use to make the muffin rise! Baking soda is ~3x stronger than baking powder and I find it works better for these muffins because the batter is a little thicker than usual so it needs a bit of an extra boost to rise nicely.
• Vinegar – Acidity that gives the baking soda a kick start on the rising! You can’t taste it at all, it’s just to activate the baking soda. Either vinegar or something else with acidity in it (like yogurt or sour cream) is fairly standard in most of my baking recipes that use baking soda.
• Coconut oil – This is the fat I use because it has coconut flavour. Use unrefined coconut oil which has the coconut flavour. Refined is coconut oil with the coconut flavour removed.

  Coconut oil is kept in the pantry and has a scoop-able consistency like butter. To use, just melt for 20 seconds in the microwave.

• Desiccated coconut – This is also called finely shredded coconut in some countries. Not to be confused with flakes / shavings which are larger. Be sure to use unsweetened, not sweetened.
• Sugar – I use white sugar here. I don’t recommend brown sugar because the crumb gets a little too soft and damp. The muffin uses 3/4 cup (150 g) of sugar which works out at 1 tablespoon per muffin, so it’s not too sweet. I initially used 1/2 cup of sugar (100 g) but personally felt the muffin was not quite sweet enough. However, feel free to use the lessor amount if you prefer!
• Egg – Use one large egg, 55-60g / 2 oz in the shell. Egg is what holds the crumb of cakes together, but the more you use, the drier a cake will be. I was struggling with a dry crumb for this cake because of the effect of including the mango puree (wet puree = more flour required = drier crumb). In the end, cutting back to just one egg turned out to be the solution!
• Vanilla – For flavour.
• Salt – Just a pinch, to bring out the other flavours. Standard baking practice these days!

How to make mango muffins

The batter making part is as straightforward as any other muffin – dump and mix, no electric beaters required. The most time will go into chopping the mango. Which I never really consider a chore given how much mango-snacking gets done during the process!

Cutting mango FOR THESE MUFFINS

Use the scrappy bits for the puree, and keep the nice large cheek pieces for dicing.

1. Cheeks first – Stand the mango upright on the wider side (ie the side that was attached to the tree). Cut the cheek of the mango off each side of the seed, aiming to leave as little flesh as possible on the seed.
2. Scoop out – Then using a large spoon or scooper (the sharper the edge, the easier it is), scoop the flesh out of the skin. Scrape out any excess flesh from the skin – ideal to use for pureeing!

3. Remove skin off seed – Cut the skin off the flesh remaining on the seed.
4. Flesh off seed – Then cut the flesh from around the seed.

5. For puree – Then puree the mango using a stick blender, or a small food processor. You might struggle with a large food processor, not enough mango.

   We need 1 cup of mango puree to mix into the batter. This is 260 grams of mango flesh (9.2 ounces), or 1 1/3 cups of mango chopped into small cubes (once pureed it becomes 1 cup). I measure by weight, and I use the scrappy bits for the puree and keep the cheeks to chop cause it’s easier!

6. Chopping the mango – We also need chopped mango to stir into the mango. To do this, take a cheek and firstly slice it in half horizontally.

7. Dice – Then, keeping the two pieces stacked, cut into a grid. If the mango pieces are too large then it can make the muffin fall apart. So chop them fairly small, around 1 cm / 1/3″ or so.
8. Measure – We need 2 cups of chopped mango. You can either chop then measure out 2 cups, or you can weigh the mango then chop (this is what I do) – you’ll need 370 grams (13 ounces).

Making the muffins

Mango chopping done, this part is super easy!

1. Spray muffin tin – Spray a 12 hole muffin tin with canola oil, or grease well with butter. I don’t use muffin liners for these muffins because I find you lose too much muffin when you peel the paper off!
2. Dry – Whisk the Dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, baking soda and salt).
3. Wet – Then whisk the wet ingredients in a separate bowl (mango puree, sugar, egg, coconut oil, vanilla, vinegar).
4. Combine – Pour the Dry into the Wet ingredients. Use a rubber spatula to mix until the flour is mostly mixed in but you can still see bits of flour.

5. Add-ins – Then add the chopped mango and coconut. Mix just until you can no longer see flour.

   ℹ️ This batter is thicker than typical muffin batters because the muffin gets a lot of moisture from the mangoes as they bake. Early versions I made with a looser batter resulted in unpleasantly wet muffins!

6. Fill and sprinkle – Divide the batter between the holes. It can mound up slightly above the hole because the batter is thicker than normal so it won’t spill over when it bakes. Sprinkle with the demerara sugar. Full coverage and the more generous the better, for a crunchier top!
7. Bake – Put the muffins into the oven preheated to 220°C/425°F (200°C fan-forced). Then immediately turn the oven DOWN to 200°C/390°F (180°C fan). Then bake for 24 minutes, or until the top is golden and crisp, and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

   ℹ️ The initial high heat gives the muffins a kick start to rise, but then lowering the heat slightly allows them to cook through evenly. Early versions baked for the whole time at the higher temperature were too dry on the outside, though I loved that the top was extra golden and crispy!

8. Cool for 10 minutes in the muffin tin. Then transfer to a cooling rack and cool for at least another 10 minutes before grabbing one!

So there you have it. Finally made a mango muffins recipe I was happy with! It was strangely more difficult than I expected. I really thought it would be as easy as switching the apple in my Apple Muffins with mango.

But it seems not. Not if you want muffins with actual mango flavour.

I hope you love these as much as I do.