Daring Bakers Challenge February 2012 - Mango & Coconut Loaf

In addition to taking part in Tina's Crazy Cooking Challenge I have also joined The Daring Kitchen's monthly Daring Baker challenge. It seems that in the past the challenges have been a fairly specific item to bake, but for my first one this month it was quickbreads! The rules: no yeast, only loaves/muffins/popovers, and can't take more than 1.5 hours to prepare and bake. Any flavour I want. Yum.

After some thought, I decided to do a mango - coconut loaf. These ingredients are available right outside my door, fresh and locally grown.

I began with my mom's banana bread recipe, which is moist and delicious, but I changed some things. Instead of using oil I substituted coconut cream, added lime juice, and obviously used mango instead of banana.

This loaf baked for a long time! It took 80 minutes for it to finally be cooked through, and when I took it out it immediately began to sink! I turned it upside down to try to prevent it, but that didn't work and it still shrank back down to a fairly low, dense cake.

This was delicious in flavour, but I didn't like the texture of it much. After it had shrank and cooled, it was a bit mushy inside, but the top was chewy. Another Daring Baker suggested that maybe I left the batter to sit too long before I baked it (I was busy pureeing the mango) so maybe next time I'll add a bit more baking soda and make sure I have everything ready to go!

Of course, as usual, I took it to work and nobody there was as critical of my work as I am! I love that no matter how bad my failures are, I know they'll still eat it!

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

Mango-Coconut Loaf

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

½ cup coconut cream

1 1/3 c flour

1 1/3 tsp baking soda (try adding a bit more)

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp ground ginger

1 cup mango puree

½ cup diced mango

¾ cup (loose) shredded coconut (fresh from the market in big shreds – thin stuff from a store might need less)

2 tbsp lime juice

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a loaf pan. Beat sugar and eggs until creamy. Mix in coconut cream. Sift dry ingredients and add to egg mixture. Add mango puree, diced mango, coconut, and lime juice. Mix and bake for 80 mins. (I would check it after 60)

This challenge was fun and I wish I'd had time to try this again (I will, eventually) and I'm very impressed by everyone else's creativity. There are SO many flavours to try, both savoury and sweet. If only I had time to stay home and try making all of them!