Cupcake Week Day 3: Mango & Dulce de Leche Cupcakes

For today's tribute to cupcake week the Devnaa team decided that we really wanted to create a recipe using mangoes. Widely referred to as the national fruit of India, mangoes are cultivated there in masses - however our favourite variety - the Kesar Mango - is only available ripe for a very short period of time between May and July every year. Kesar mangoes have an incredibly intense, rich mango flavour and are so lovely and sweet. The colour is a vibrant orange, hence the name 'Kesar' referring to saffron. You can however buy tinned Kesar Mango Pulp throughout the year from most Indian grocery stores.

The cupcakes we created today were our first attempt at using mango in anything baked and as we read from a lot of bloggers who have tried this before, mango pulp just doesn't provide a strong hit of flavour when baked or even folded into icing. This can be remedied by using mango extract which is available on the internet and in some health food stores but this tends to be the flavour of West Indian mangoes and so we opted out, thinking lets see how we go. The result was a lovely soft cupcake, a beautiful bright yellow in colour with a light fragrance of mango. The addition of the dulce de leche lends a nice caramelly flavour which helps to lift the mango slightly.

Mango & Dulce de Leche Cupcakes (makes 12)

Ingredients for Dulce de Leche:
400g tin Sweetened Condensed Milk
Pinch of Salt

Method:

• Start this recipe with the dulce de leche as it takes a while and then even longer to cool - pre heat your oven to gas mark 7/220C/425F and set your kettle to boil
• Pour the condensed milk into a 25cm (approximately) baking dish and sprinkle on the salt
• Set this baking dish into a larger one and fill the larger dish with hot water until it reaches half way up the sides of the smaller dish
• Cover with foil and carefully place in the oven
• Allow to bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, checking every 30 minutes or so and replenishing the water if necessary
• When ready the condensed milk should look nice and golden and caramelly
• Remove from the oven and carefully take the smaller dish out of the larger one
• Allow to come to room temperature giving it a good stir every now and again to help it along and stop a skin from forming on top
• Once you have finished with the dulce de leche in this recipe you can store it in the fridge, just warm it slightly whenever you want to use it

Ingredients for Mango Sponge:
120g Butter
150g Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
185g Self Raising Flour
150ml Mango Pulp

Method:

• Pre heat oven to gas mark 4/180C/350F and line cupcake tin with cases
• Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy and then beat in the vanilla extract (and mango extract if using)
• Scrape down the sides of your bowl and beat in the eggs, one at a time
• Slowly beat in a third of the flour followed by half of the mango pulp, followed by another third of the flour and then the rest of the mango pulp ending with the last of the flour
• Beat well to create a thick, smooth batter
• Divide between the cupcake cases and bake for around 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
• Cool on a wire rack

Ingredients for Mango Whipped Cream
200ml Whipping Cream
50g Caster Sugar
100ml Mango Pulp

Method:

• Whip the cream until it is thick and holding it's shape well
• Fold in the sugar and mango pulp carefully - the mango pulp will make the cream slightly loose again
• Refrigerate until required

Assembly:

• Poke a hole into each cupcake, going about two thirds down but not too wide
• Fill a piping bag with dulce de leche and pipe into each hole until it oozes out
• Top each cupcake with a swirl of the mango whipped cream
• Drizzle with more dulce de leche and even some mango pulp if you like (we sprinkled some edible gold glitter on ours)
• Best served immediately otherwise keep refrigerated until dessert!