Full disclosure: I was NOT excited about making this recipe. It just didn't sound all that appealing to me. For one, I don't really like mango. I mean... it's okay, but not something I feel like should be thrown into breads. I like it more when it's mixed with lime, garlic and pineapple and spooned raw over a grilled piece of fish or something.
I recently bought my first mango, though. About a month ago, my grocery store had mangoes on sale and I thought... hmm... I'll buy a mango. Why not? When I got that bad boy home... I had NO idea what to do with him. I mean... what in the world is that hard center about? I couldn't get my knife through it and it had no discernible start or end point. I ended up just sawing off random bits of the ends. And the taste? Blech. It was like eating slightly dampened chalk.
I had a feeling that this mango was not a ripe mango.
After that experience... the mango and I... well, we were on the outs.
I had already decided to skip this week of Tuesdays with Dorie, until I was browsing my grocery store's circular for the week and saw that mangoes were on sale again this week. Awwwwwww... hell. That's a sign, no? So... I picked one up. (Luckily I had read in the Tuesdays with Dorie weekly Problems & Questions forum how to pick a ripe mango... A ripe mango, apparently has a little give when you press it, fyi).
I nonchalantly started to make this bread yesterday... again fumbling with the awkward mango and it's hard core. There HAS to be a way to cut a mango, but I couldn't figure it out on my own. So, again, I ended up just whacking around the ends and trying to avoid the core. The recipe calls for diced fresh mangoes? Well... mine ended up being massacred fresh mangoes. But, who cares, right? I'm not going to like this recipe anyhow...
I only made a third of the recipe and fit all the batter into a mini loaf pan and the only substitution I made was regular raisins instead of golden. And, I must say... I'm starting to see a theme here. Much like how the ever-expanding fat rolls that I have keep spilling out over my waistbands (ala muffintop), so do all the pie, muffins, cakes, tarts, bread recipes that I make of Dories in their pans. I mean.. What the hell? Is it just me? (It could have something to do with the fact that I rarely make a whole recipe and I'm always halving/thirding/quartering recipes and Dorie always writes her recipes like this... "pour the batter evenly amongst the muffin tins" She never says... "fill your muffin cups up 3/4 of the way." So, everything oozes out... (last weeks tart? holy moly)). So did this recipe. Ooozed out all over the place. Arg!
Anyway... Folks... I'm renaming this bread... NINJA Bread. Because it totally sneaks up on you and blows you away. Seriously. This bread is like candy. (I did add extra brown sugar to the recipe... I like my breads sweet, what can I say?). Dangerous Candy Ninja Bread. I loved the crunchy top and the chewy edges. YUM. I think I'll play around with this recipe in the future... and try out some other fruits instead of mango (cause... i'm still not best friends with the mango... haha I just flashed back to the SNL sketches about Mango ).
So, thank you Kelly Baking with the Boys for picking this recipe... and thank you Harris Teeter for having mangoes on sale this week.
