Sunday Servings: Mango-Berry Crumb Cake

Village life made me industrious.

Living on a shoe-string budget forces you to really use reduce, reuse and recycle to your advantage. I turned old coffee tins into canisters, old magazines into drawer liners, and used ketchup bottles into rolling pins. I even had a pot rack and a clothes rack made out of old PVC  pipe and a bit of rope.

My new found industriousness also brought out the baker in me. Baking bread myself was a great way to save a little bit of cash, but it also, somehow, eased my soul. You can work out a lot of emotion kneading dough or mixing batter. Sometimes my tears would spill over into the batter adding a bittersweet saltiness. Sometimes my fears and anxieties would knead their way through the dough. Sometimes laughter and friendship would mark out the minutes as my little tabletop oven baked away.

For every new season, I'd dig through recipes online looking for new ways to use mango and pears, granadilla and guava, avocado and zucchini--each ingredient providing a rich and flavorful nuance and creating a new experience of taste.

But the more often I put on my baker's hat, the more I realized baking is really an act of generosity.

It is impossible to bake for one. When you divide a recipe for one serving, it never bakes just right or tastes the same--its too salty or too sweet or a bit burnt or wobbly in the middle. Baking is about generosity and hospitality. Its sharing with the neighbors and making friends with the granny down the street. Its coffee cake for tea time at the office and birthday cakes for friends and family. Baking is an act of giving and receiving. Its an act of love and care for someone else.

Last year for my friend Sarinah's birthday, I found a recipe for a Mango-Berry Crumb Cake. Sarinah is not a fan of chocolate or really any sweets, but she loves fruit, especially mango. Lucky for her, her birthday falls in mango season. It turned out to be an especially nice coffee cake--not too sweet but full of flavor. Each bite was a whole experience to itself as the sweetness of the mango blended with the tartness of the raspberries. I still remember her taking that first bite and watching her enjoy something created just to make her taste buds pop.

Since baking is an act of generosity, I think this forum is a good place to be generous. So I'm starting "Sunday Servings" for those of you who might want to join me in being a little more generous through the act of baking. Each week, I'll post a new recipe I've tried and share a little bit of its story. Because if baking is about generosity, then every baked good has a story. I'd love it if you'd share your recipes and their stories here too.

Today on my 30th birthday, I think it is fitting to kick-off Sunday Servings with Sarinah's Mango-Berry Crumb Cake. Enjoy!

Mango-Berry Crumb Cake:

Ingredients

Crumb Topping:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Cake:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 mango - peeled, seeded and diced
• 1 cup raspberries (You can use frozen if fresh raspberries are not available.)

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9-inch square baking pan.
2. Mix crumb topping ingredients together in a bowl until the mixture is the consistency of wet sand. Set the topping aside.
3. Beat 1/2 cup butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add the egg and mix well. Stir in the vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, combine 2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg.
4. Mix the flour mixture into the creamed butter mixture alternately with the buttermilk, stirring just to combine. After the last of the flour mixture is incorporated, gently fold in the diced mango and raspberries. Spread the batter into the prepared pan (the batter will be thick). Sprinkle with crumb topping.
5. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Giving my 30th Away

In a week on March 25th, I will be 30 years old. Thirty doesn’t frighten me. It doesn’t feel old, and I can say with a sigh of relief that I am not coming into it with deep regrets. Thirty just feels right. And in actuality, with becoming a mother and moving back to the US, I’ve taken very little time to think about thirty.

But thirty is one of those milestone years, and it strikes me that it should be marked in a significant way. So I’m giving my 30th birthday away…

Working and living at Oasis Haven has been life-changing for me. It has set me on a path that I never would have expected towards a life’s purpose and a calling that I know is far bigger than anything I could ever accomplish alone. And towards becoming a mother of a precious little girl who I never would have met if not through Oasis Haven.

For this and for thousands of other things big and small, I want to say thanks in a significant way. But I need your help to do so.

In honor of my 30th birthday, would you consider giving to Oasis Haven? Would you consider helping us keep the promise that we make to every child entrusted to our care?

You can do so in a couple of ways:

1.   Visit our website to donate online. (For those of you who are not in South Africa, you can use the available credit card donation for South African donors, but please be advised that this will not be a tax deductible donation.)

2.   Make a deposit into Oasis Haven’s bank account:

First National Bank
Branch Code 254005
Account Number 620 565 267 37
Swift Code FIRNZAJJ
Reference: AP’s Bday [Your Surname & Phone number]

or send a check to Oasis Haven US:

          PO Box 28362
          San Diego, CA 92198
          Memo: AP’s Birthday

3.   Or make a long term commitment to Oasis Haven of R100 or $25 a month—a commitment made that is a promise kept. A debit order form (SA givers) and a credit card donation form (US givers) are available for download on our website.

Every Rand, every dollar means more children rescued and more children placed in families.

Entering into my fourth decade of life, I want to see a dream realized of children rescued forever. I want for you and for me and for the Church and for people everywhere, to make orphaned and abandoned children a top priority. It’s a dream that can be realized—it only takes 7% of Christians worldwide to make a decision for adoption. 7% and every child has a family of their very own and the orphan crisis comes to an end.

What if we dared to dream big? What if we dared to ask ourselves the question: “Is God calling me to adopt?” What if we dared to ask ourselves: “What is God asking me to do to care for the orphan and the widow?” Be certain that He’s asking you something. The real question is: Will you dare to answer His question?

(To find out more about Oasis Haven and other ways that you can get involved, visit their website at www.oasishaven.org, check them out on Facebook and Twitter or email me direct at amanda@oasishaven.org.)

Most recent occurrence, I turned 25.

My day was completely relaxed. A nice lunch at Olive Garden with a few friends. Beautiful blue skies. Reading and more reading. Completely low key. Completely wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Thanks to all who shared birthday wishes. I hope to get back to each of you soon.

So now that I am 25, I must be considerably wiser. I must know something more than 24. Not sure that I do. I know that I am 25. I know that reading and hiking are the most enjoyable past times. I know that people are important and relationships with people even more important. I know that living healthy is about what you put into your body, how you exert your body, and the impact that body makes on the larger whole of our planet. I know that I can choose to give or choose to keep and that more often than not choosing to give is the more rewarding option. I know that I actually know nothing, or at least very little, and I know that is generally the status of most of humanity.

I'm 25, and I'm choosing to live my life. And maybe one of these days, I will figure out exactly what that means.