Give your next layer cake a seasonal flavor with this fresh mango cake. Made with moist layers of mango sponge filled with sweet mango puree, and frosted with mango Swiss meringue buttercream. And, of course, topped with slices of fresh mangoes for that ultimate finish.
I love the site of mangoes in the market. And while we love eating mangoes on their own, they also make amazing ingredients in desserts, such as the recent no-bake mango cheesecake I shared or this mango cake. See all my 30 plus mango recipes here.
About this mango cake
This is a very versatile cake and can be used with almost any fruit puree. Today, I am using fresh mango puree because mangoes are in season.
The cake batter is a butter-based cake recipe with eggs, all-purpose flour, and buttermilk. I prefer to use all-purpose flour as compared to cake flour, because it adds stability to the heavy mango puree.
I am using fresh mangoes to make the mango puree, but you can also use frozen mangoes. However, do not use frozen mangoes slices on top of the cake, as the condensation may cause issues.
For the frosting, today, I am using a mango Swiss meringue buttercream. My next favorite would be my no-butter cream cheese frosting. In addition, there are other buttercreams that would work just as well. See my 50 plus buttercream frosting recipes on this blog.
The process and timeline for this cake is very simple.
- Prepare mango puree - 5 minutes
- Prepare cake batter - 10 minutes
- Bake cake - 25 minutes
- Chill cake - 4 hours at least (preferably overnight)
- Prepare buttercream - 15 minutes
- Crumb coat cake - 15 minutes
- Chill cake - 15 minutes
- Second coat - 15 minutes
- Chill cake - 15 minutes
- Final smoothing - 15 minutes
- Garnish - 10 minutes
Ingredients and substitutes
- All-purpose flour - I prefer all-purpose flour for this cake.
- Unsalted butter - I always use unsalted, so I can control the amount of salt. And yet, if salted butter is all you have, use it and omit salt in the recipe.
- Sugar - I'm using white sugar, so I can have a white cake. It's always best to use fine-grain white sugar, so it dissolves easily in the butter.
- Buttermilk - If you don't buttermilk on hand, don't worry. It takes just 5 minutes to make homemade buttermilk for baking.
- Vanilla extract - A good quality vanilla extract is very important and adds a nice flavor to your baked goods.
- Mango - I am using fresh mangoes, but you can also use frozen mangoes for this recipe. And, for the top garnish, you can also use a mango puree instead of fresh slices.
Short video here - video with narration below in recipe card
Step by step instructions (save/pin)
Mango puree
- First, skin and slice the mango around the seed.
- Place in a food processor or blender and pulse until smooth.
- Then, place in a saucepan and cook down on low heat until almost ½ it's original volume.
- Divide as required in the recipe below for cake, filling, and buttercream.
- Depending on the size of the mango, you may have need more or fewer mangoes.
Cake
- Preheat the oven at 160 C / 320 F.
- Grease and line 3 x 7-inch baking pans or two 9-inch baking pans.
- Next, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Then, whip eggs with half the sugar until light and foamy (ribbon stage) - remove to a bowl and set aside.
- Cream butter and remaining sugar until light and fluffy.
- Next, add the vanilla extract.
- Followed by the flour and buttermilk in three batches.
- Then, the mango puree.
- Scrape the sides and bottom to ensure you have a smooth batter.
- Finally, fold in the whipped eggs in three batches.
- Divide the batter between the prepared baking pans.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes.
- When done, cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
- Invert onto a cooling rack and cool completely before decorating.
Swiss meringue buttercream
- Place egg whites and sugar in the bowl of the stand mixer.
- Using a whisk, place the bowl over a double boiler and constantly whip until all the sugar has dissolved and the egg whites are fairly warm (about 160 F).
- Take the bowl off the heat and whip the egg whites until you have a thick meringue with stiff peaks.
- Let the mixer continue to whip on medium-low until the mixer bowl feels cool to touch.
- Then, gradually add butter, one cube at a time, with the mixer medium speed.
- Once all the butter is in, whip on medium-high for 2 minutes.
- Lastly, add the vanilla.
- Combine well until everything is well combined.
- Put 2 cups buttercream in a piping bag for the buttercream dam
- Mango buttercream - Add mango puree to the remaining buttercream.
- Add a few drops of yellow food color.
Assemble
- Prepare simple syrup – cool completely before using.
- Once cooled, cut the domes off the cake layers.
- Brush each layer with the cooled, simple syrup.
- Place a cake layer on the cake board or cake stand.
- Fill the cake - Pip a buttercream dam (edge) on the cake layer.
- Top with a big dollop of mango puree – spread evenly, but within the piped buttercream dam/edge. (see video)
- Then, top the second cake layer on top followed by buttercream dam and filling.
- Then, place the last cake layer on top.
- Place the cake in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, so the layers hold together and the filling will not leak out.
- Crumb coat - Spread more buttercream around and top of the cake. (see video)
- Chill the cake for another 15 to 30 minutes.
- Second coat - then, spread more buttercream
- Use a bench scraper to smooth the sides of the cake and an offset spatula to smooth the top. Chill cake for 30 minutes.
- Final smoothing - dip an off-set spatula and bench scraper in warm water and smooth the sides and top of the cake.
- Add the remaining frosting in a large piping bag with the star tip.
- Pipe a border around the cake at the top. (see video)
- Decorate with slices of fresh mango (see video).
- This cake will stay in the fridge for up to a week.
- You can keep the unfrosted cake at room temperature for 2 days.
- You can even freeze this cake for up to a month.
Frequently asked questions
This cake will keep at room temperature unfrosted for 3 days. And, once frosted, in the fridge for up to a week. You can also freeze it for up to a month.
This cake works better with butter. Since, mango puree is a heavy fruit, so it may cause the cake to sink.
Cake flour gives a wonderfully soft and tender cake. But, I personally prefer to use all-purpose flour for this cake.
Absolutely. You can soak ⅓ cup mango powder + ¼ cup water, then add it to the cake batter. Also, use ½ cup mango powder for the Swiss meringue buttercream. Beat it in at the last minute.
You certainly can frost this cake with whipped cream. And, for a lighter mango cake with whipped cream, use my genoise cake with stabilized whipped cream.
Yes, Swiss or Italian meringue, also work wonderfully with this cake. In addition, I have 50 plus buttercream frosting recipes on this blog so the is so much you can try.
Well, if you don't want to make this a mango layer cake,
- You can use an 8-inch bundt pan like my mango bundt cake.
- Make a sheet cake using a 9 x 11 sheet pan.
- Use a 9 x 9-inch square pan for a coffee cake.
- These will also make 20 beautiful mango cupcakes.
Mangoes are so versatile and can be used in many desserts. I have shared many desserts with you on this blog. See here for my 30 plus popular mangoes recipes.
We reduce the mango puree for a more concentrated flavor. You can also use fewer mangoes and skip the reduction as well.
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Description
Ingredients
Mango puree
- 4 Mangoes large and ripe
Cake
- 3 ½ cups (440 g) All-purpose flour
- 2 cups (400 g) White sugar
- 12 oz (340 g) Butter (3 sticks) unsalted
- 4 Eggs large
- 2 tsp Baking powder
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- ½ tsp Salt
- ¾ cup (180 ml) Buttermilk
- ¾ cup (180 ml) Mango puree (see above)
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
Swiss meringue buttercream
Enough to fill and frost the four layers but you can half if you want less frosting
- 6 (180 g) Egg whites (¾ cup)
- 1 cup (200 g) White sugar
- ¼ tsp Cream of tartar (optional)
- 16 oz (454 g) Unsalted butter (2 cups) room temperature
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- ½ tsp Salt
- ¼ cup (60 g) Mango puree (see above)
- 2 drops Egg yellow food color
Extra
- 1 cup (250 g) Mango puree for filling (see above)
- ½ cup (120 ml) Simple syrup to moisten layers
- 1 Mango fresh sliced
Instructions
Mango puree
- Skin and slice the mango around the seed.
- Place in a food processor or blender and pulse until smooth.
- Place in a saucepan and cook down on low heat until almost ½ it's original volume.
- Divide as required in the recipe below for cake, filling, and buttercream.
- Depending on the size of the mango you may have need more or fewer mangoes.
Cake
- Preheat the oven at 160 C / 320 F.
- Grease and line 3 x 7-inch baking pans or two 9-inch baking pans.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Whip eggs with half the sugar until light and foamy (ribbon stage) - remove to a bowl and set aside.
- Cream butter and remaining sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the vanilla extract.
- Followed by the flour and buttermilk in three batches.
- Then, the mango puree.
- Scrape the sides and bottom to ensure you have a smooth batter.
- Finally, fold in the whipped eggs in three batches.
- Divide the batter between the prepared baking pans.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes.
- When done, cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
- Invert onto a cooling rack and cool completely before decorating.
Swiss meringue buttercream
- Place egg whites and sugar in the bowl of the stand mixer.
- Using a whisk, place the bowl over a double boiler and constantly whip until all the sugar has dissolved and the egg whites are fairly warm (about 160 F).
- Take the bowl off the heat and whip the egg whites until you have a thick meringue with stiff peaks.
- Let the mixer continue to whip on medium-low until the mixer bowl feels cool to touch.
- Then gradually add butter, one cube at a time, with the mixer medium speed.
- Once all the butter is in, whip on medium-high for 2 minutes.
- Lastly, add the vanilla.
- Combine well until everything is well combined.
- Put 2 cups buttercream in a piping bag for the buttercream dam.
- Mango buttercream - Add mango puree to the remaining buttercream.
- Add a few drops of yellow food color.
Assemble
- Prepare simple syrup – cool completely before using.
- Once cooled, cut the domes off the cake layers.
- Brush each layer with the cooled, simple syrup.
- Place a cake layer on the cake board or cake stand.
- Fill the cake - Pip a buttercream dam (edge) on the cake layer
- Top with a big dollop of mango puree – spread evenly but within the piped buttercream dam/edge. (see video)
- Then, top the second cake layer on top followed by buttercream dam and filling.
- Then, place the last cake layer on top.
- Place the cake in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, so the layers hold together and the filling will not leak out.
- Crumb coat - Spread more buttercream around and top of the cake. (see video)
- Chill the cake for another 15 to 30 minutes.
- Second coat - then spread more buttercream.
- Use a bench scraper to smooth the sides of the cake and an offset spatula to smooth the top. Chill cake for 30 minutes.
- Final smoothing - dip an off-set spatula and bench scraper in warm water and smooth the sides and top of the cake.
- Add the remaining frosting in a large piping bag with the star tip.
- Pipe a border around the cake at the top. (see video)
- Decorate with slices of fresh mango (see video).
Recipe Notes
- Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature before you start baking.
- Use large size eggs - a large size egg is about 60 grams in weight. If not sure, weight and add more egg if necessary
- Add the sugar to the whipping eggs gradually. This will ensure the eggs whip the eggs light and fluffy.
- Whip the eggs until light and fluffy - this will ensure a light and airy cake.
- Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This will give a light and airy cake.
- You can add the buttermilk on its own or along with the flour as long as you do it carefully. Best is to add the buttermilk and flour alternating to each other.
- Once you add flour do not over mix the batter.
- Add the mango puree to the batter and combine well.
- Cool the cake completely before frosting - at least 3 to 6 hours.
- Always simple syrup the cakes before frosting
Equipment
Nutrition Information
The nutrition information and metric conversion are calculated automatically. I cannot guarantee its accuracy. If this data is important to you please verify with your trusted nutrition calculator. Thank you
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