Tropical Mango Vanilla Cupcakes

So, this is my first Fiesta Friday post! I’m super excited to be joining the party and looking forward to mingling with all of you. As I was deciding what special dessert I should bring to the occasion, I was thinking about how much I’ve been enjoying the summer weather now that it’s finally here. My husband, the boys and I have been really enjoying our walks around our neighborhood and catching up with our neighbors. We’ve all been hibernating with the extreme cold winter we’ve had and it’s nice to see everyone out and about.

To celebrate the beautiful weather, I decided to make something using flavors that symbolize summer. While I was at the supermarket, I noticed some gorgeous mangos on sale, perfect! I love mangos, they’re such a sweet and fragrant fruit. Mangos are also a tropical fruit, so I wanted to carry that theme into my recipe. Then I came across some coconut flavored yogurt and it just came together for me. To be honest, I’ve never baked with yogurt before, I usually use sour cream, but no better time than the present to try something new.

Summer is perfect time to make the interesting twist with the classic vanilla cupcakes. What would be a better way to do that  but to enrich them with little tropical flavor. Buterry vanilla cake complemented with coconut flavored yogurt, topped with sweet, refreshing, fragrant mango buttercream simply scream summer.

These vanilla cupcakes are rich, buttery, moist, and have a hint of coconut from adding the coconut yogurt to the batter. The buttercream tastes fresh and sweet, and is bursting with mango flavor. I was super happy when I was whipping up the buttercream, the smell of fresh mangos filled my kitchen and the gorgeous color made it look like a bowl of sunshine.

The buttery vanilla, sweet mango, and light taste of coconut is a perfect combination. However, if you’re not a coconut fan, french vanilla yogurt is quite lovely with the mango flavor too.

Ingredients

• 1 & ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup coconut flavored yogurt (or vanilla)
• ¾ cup milk (I used whole milk)
• 1 tsp vanilla

Buttercream ingredients

• ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup mango puree (using a handheld or stand blender, puree a generous ½ cup of diced mangos until smooth)
• 3-4 cups icing sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with 12 paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, toss together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter with the sugar. Add the egg, yogurt, milk and vanilla. Stir together, then gently pour into the dry ingredients. Mix until smooth and try not to over mix.
4. Fill the paper liners ¾ full with batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool completely before frosting.
5. To make the buttercream, whip the butter until light and fluffy. Add the mango puree, mix until somewhat incorporated. Add the 3 cups of icing sugar, one at a time, mixing well in between. Add the 4th cup if needed for desired consistency.