Muffin Baking Problem - Batter Around Fruit Doesn't Cook

[Wheatfreeleeshy]

Hi guys! I love muffins with fresh fruit in them but I'm having trouble with the batter surrounding certain fruits not cooking. For instance I made bran flax muffins with blueberries, cranberries & diced mango. There were little pockets of raw dough surrounding the mango (but not the berries). For the next batch I tried freezing the mango before adding to the batter but that made it worse. I really want to make some peach muffins but I don't want to go through all that time, energy & money only to have to throw them out!

Thanks much!!

[pricklypear1971]

gluten-free baking is odd, because so much depends on your flour blend.

The fresh, juicy mango may be too wet for that flour mix or recipe.

Try dried mango, drained (for an hour+) mango, or baking longer or at a higher temperature.

[LauraTX]

I think prickly is right, that the mango is bleeding out too much moisture into the batter in the later stages of baking.  Maybe you can pre-bake the mango peices a little bit to where they dry out around the edges if you don't want to use dried fruit.  You can also partially hydrate dried fruit.  You may also find good results using mashed mango, especially with other chunked up fruit in the muffin, just reduce a little of the liquid ingredients.  It will probably take a few experiments, let us know how it works out!

[Wheatfreeleeshy]

What's confusing is that there are so many mango muffin recipes and no one (that I could find) mentions this issue but I have seen others mention it about other fruits. For the bran muffins I discovered they were still incredibly delicious sans-mango, so I make them with just the berries now & have no probs. If I'm feeling extra spiffy (did I really just say spiffy? Lol) I make mango butter with fresh mango & grassfed butter... And yes it's as scrumptious as it sounds :-)

Have any of you ever had this problem? I really want to make peach muffins with chunks of peach (I have bags of frozen sliced organic peaches). If flour matters, I always use a blend of nutritious whole grain flours (buckwheat, teff, quinoa, sorghum, flax, almond, etc) plus starches.

Thanks so much!!

[pricklypear1971]

Just try to chop the fresh fruit super-finely and drain it very well.

Try increasing baking time and thoroughly cool before eating. Most gluten-free baked goods need to "set" as they cool, I've found.

[JNBunnie1]

Might even be an enzymatic thing between the mango and the flours you're using.

[Wheatfreeleeshy]

Thanks guys! I'll let you know how the peach muffins turn out! First though...cranberry orange marmalade muffins...

:-D