Berry Mango Swirl Muffins

A multicolored muffin swirled with blueberry, mango, raspberry, and strawberry purees. This whole grain treat makes a large batch, great for bake sales and sharing.

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I was sitting in a Tim Hortons enjoying a blue and yellow swirled lemon blueberry muffin when I got the idea for these muffins. My folks have been visiting this month, which means I've been out and about much more than usual (and have tried a number of interesting breakfast and lunch places--stay tuned for more inspired recipes). Looking at the muffin, I tried to figure out how to simultaneously 'lightly mix together' the batter, as one does for the Muffin Method, while still getting the blueberry puree fully incorporated into the mix.


Clearly I didn't make lemon blueberry muffins for today's Leap of Faith Muffin Monday with the #MuffinMonday bakers. I didn't even master a swirl technique that I could share on the blog. I did, however, make a whole mess of muffins. Enough to give a plate to the office staff of both the junior high and the high schools, some to take to the shop, and the most photogenic ones saved for the dogs.


That's right, apparently Vincent got up to shenanigans while I was at the shop and ate the pretty muffins, not a crumb or paper left. I love that old wiener dog, and while I have no concrete proof (my daughter saw him on the dining room table though), instead of making a bazillion more muffins I've just taken photos of what's left. They were fruity and fun to make, though, so I hope you'll consider trying these when you want to make a bunch of muffins that stand out a bit.

I used a combination of locally-grown and exotic fruit for these muffins, just because I was in the mood, we picked up a large container of mango slices at Costco along with the free samples, and my Mango Recipes Collection was sorely lacking. I grew the strawberries and black raspberries, though, froze them when they were ripe, and smushed them all up in their vacuum sealed pouches before measuring out a cup. Unfortunately I only measured out half a cup of black raspberries, so I grabbed a bag of blueberries from the freezer and added so that I had a full cup of fruit puree.

I didn't grow the blueberries, we planted 2 bushes when we moved in, along with the raspberry canes, the peach trees, and the strawberry patch--but the blueberry bushes were finicky and died. Fair enough, the other berries are going strong in my little yard so I'm OK with one loss.

That reminds me to remind all of us--it's always a good time to layer some compost and other soil amendments to nourish anything you're growing, ornamental or functional. Before we get some rain this week I'll lay down more shredded leaves, coffee grounds, and even some wood fireplace ashes I recently crowdsourced from my neighborhood. Continual amending of the soil is my Daddy's secret to gardening success. Here's some more of his secrets.

For more recipes using blueberries, please see my Blueberry Recipes Collection. For more recipes using Mango, please see the aforementioned Mango Recipes Collection. For more recipes using Raspberries, please see my Raspberry Recipes Collection. For more recipes using strawberries, please see my Strawberry Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating seasonally, putting up excess produce when it's abundant, and shopping for exotic produce when I don't feel like thawing the frozen stuff. I'm pinning all sorts of recipes to my Pinterest boards, follow me there. I'm sharing things that catch my eye on my Facebook page, follow me there. For a peek into my day, I'm sharing photos on my Instagram feed, follow me there. Forty one more muffin recipes can be found on the right side of the blog in the desktop/laptop view, under the Muffins/Breads tab because I'm just not that witty when it comes to indexing my recipes. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Berry Mango Swirl Muffins (makes about 3 dozen regular muffins or 80-100 mini muffins)

Ingredients 

• 3 cups (24 ounces) buttermilk, divided
• 3 cups rolled oats (I use the old fashioned kind), divided
• 3 cups fruit puree (I used 1 cup each mango, strawberry, and a blueberry/raspberry blend)
• 3 eggs, divided
• ¾ cup brown sugar, divided
• ¾ cup (6 ounces) vegetable oil, divided
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
• 3 cups (12 ¾ ounces by weight) unbleached all purpose flour, divided
• 3 teaspoons baking powder, divided
• 1+½ teaspoons baking soda, divided
• 1+½ teaspoons salt, divided

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and line a regular 12 week muffin pan or a 24 well mini muffin pan with paper liners. It's too tricky to try with just oil spray in my opinion.
2. Using 3 medium bowls, measure into each bowl 1 cup buttermilk, 1 cup oats, 1 cup fruit puree, 1 egg, ¼ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup vegetable oil, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Use an immersion blender to fully combine and break down any fruit chunks into a smooth batter.
3. Dump into each bowl 1 cup (4+¼ ounces by weight) flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon each baking powder and salt. Stir until just mixed and set aside.
4. Add all 3 batters to each muffin well. This is easier typed than done. First, I tried using a mini cookie scoop, 3 scoops (Amazon affiliate link) in a regular sized muffin pan, but since I only have 1 of these scoops I added a scoop of one batter to each well, then washed the scoop and repeated until I'd added each of the batters to each well. No swirling happened as the first batter had plenty of time to spread out across the bottom of the paper liner. I had good success using the mini muffin pan with 3 small spoons, adding about ½ teaspoon of batter nearly simultaneously to each well. It takes hand eye coordination, but when you're making multiple pans you tend to get the hang of it pretty quickly.
5. Bake regular sized muffins for 18 to 20 minutes, and let rest in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Bake mini muffins for 15 minutes, let rest in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
6. Serve warm or at room temperature.

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

Here's the list of muffin bakers taking a Leap of Faith and making something new:

• Berry Mango Swirl Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Brown Sugar, Pistachio and Garam Masala Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Carrot Muffins from Kelli's Kitchen
• Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Cardamom Browned Butter from The Spiced Life
• Marmite Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Prawn and Curry Leaf Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Rosewater Banana White Chocolate Muffins from Making Miracles
• Spinach, Bacon and Cheese Breakfast Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm