Offically On Board with the Mango Tango

I took ballroom dancing lessons in high school and learned how to tango. But up until today I'd never tried a mango. I'd had a strawberry mango smoothie but I'd never just eaten a mango. And boy was it delish.

Okay, so what if they're sitting on the washer. There was no other free space!!

So after my first taste of mango, I went on to make mango cupcakes using....*GASP* a boxed mix as my basis. I initally did not want to use the box mix. I wanted to make a yellow cake batter and add in the mango.  But the recipe promised, that with a few modifications I wouldn't be able to taste the "storebought fake sweet taste". So I thought I'd try it. Now, if I'd been smart I would have made 1 batch of cupcakes with the box and one compeltely from scratch and then asked people which they prefered. But I'd didn't plan ahead so I'll have to try that experiment later. Perhaps, with chocolate mini cupcakes.

So, for the cupcakes you mix together one yellow cake box mix with 4 eggs, 1/3 cup canola oil and 3/4 cup of buttermilk and 1 cup of mashed mango, instead of the ingredients/amounts that the box called for. Bake at 350  for 15 minutes and let cool while you make the frosting.

The frosting called for 4 oz cream cheese, 1/4 cup of butter 4-6 cups of powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of half and half. I left out the half and half and ran out of powdered sugar after adding in 2 cups, so I stuck a cup or so of granualted sugar in the blender and it let it run until the sugar was powdered...TADA (okay, I tried smashing it to bits before dragging out the blender but it was slow going). I also added in about 4-5 tablespoons of manjo juice. I don't have an accurate measurement because I just squeezed the mango into the frosting bowl until it looked like there was enough.

And I ended up with maybe a cup of leftover frosting that I'm looking for a recipe to use them on. I'm thinking it'd be good on bity chocolate cupcakes, but since I don't have anything but chocolate chips I think I might try making an amish cake and topping it withe frosting instead of the brown sugar and nuts it called for...or maybe cinnamon rolls? What do you think?

I'm glad I added in the juice because it really added a nice mango punch to the cupcakes, which on their on had a very subtle sweet fruity flavor. The juice made a wonderful difference, and gave the frosting a pale yellow color.

Mike and I both have cupcakes to take to work tomorrow!

I liked the cupcakes and will probabbly make them again, but maybe add in some more mango and possibly some rum/ rum extract. And oh, this made 24 cupcakes!

If you want to see the original recipe you can find it here.