Procedure1 Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease the bread pan.

2 Wash the strawberries, hull them and cut each strawberry into 4 pieces. Place it in a bowl and sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar and mix it and leave it for at least 5 minutes.

3 In a big bowl mix together the yogurt, mango puree, vinegar, sugar, cardamom powder and saffron strands. To this add the cut strawberries.

4 In another small bowl sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Actually I placed the sieve over the big bowl and added the dry ingredients directly into the wet mixture. Mix it until just moistened.

5 Fill the bread loaves 3/4th full and bake it for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Mine was done in 19 minutes.

6 Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack and cool for 5 minutes. Take out the bread from the pan after 5 minutes and let it cool on the wire rack. This is very important. I left the bread in the pan itself for more than 30 minutes and the bottom became soggy.

Taste

I can swear that it did not taste “healthy or fat free”. It tasted like any other regular quick bread, but I don’t know why my son did not like it. My husband liked that it was fat free but he did not like the saffron/cardamom combination that much. The bread was soft and spongy inside, which is because of the vinegar I think. It was not a very sweet bread, which is perfect for me. You may want to add another 1-2 tablespoons of sugar if you want it sweeter.

As for the texture, it was a bit soggy (see Procedure point no.6 and Notes point no.1). So I kept it on two sheets of paper towel and stored it covered in the fridge overnight and it was good in the morning. With minor alterations this recipe will yield perfect mango quick bread. Check my Notes for further details.

One more observation, if you are looking for a mango bread recipe with lot of mango flavor, I think it’s ideal to omit cardamom powder, saffron and use either vanilla extract or mango extract or a combination of both, or maybe use puree made from fresh mangoes. The recipe I have mentioned did not have the mango flavor. I think the cardamom overpowered the mango’s flavor. The brand of mango puree can also be a reason, I guess, because I used a brand which I have never used before. I think it’s better to use the Kesar Mango puree. And of course, using chopped mangoes instead of the strawberries I have used will also add to the mango “ness”.

My Notes1 I wanted to substitute the mango puree for the oil used in the original recipe, which is 1/4 cup, but I wanted to increase the mango flavor and added another 1/4 cup, so that’s one of the reason for sogginess. 1/2 cup is 8 tablespoons, that’s why I have reduced it to 6 tablespoons in the ingredients list.

2 Increase the quantity of sugar by 2-3 tablespoons if you go with 6 tablespoons of mango puree. Since the mango puree has sugar I had used only 1/4 cup sugar in place of the 1/2 cup mentioned in the original recipe. So if you reduce the quantity of mango puree, you may want to increase the quantity of sugar.

3 I think this measurement will yield about 8-9 regular size muffins and you will have to double the measurement to prepare a regular size quick bread. Sweatha has baked the muffins at 375F.

4 Mango lassi is a combination of mango, yogurt and sugar. So you know what to do if you have a cup of leftover mango lassi! Make this wonderful moist mango bread.