Recipe: Turning Dragon Fruit into delicious bread

MANILA, Philippines — We usually just eat dragon fruit or we make a nice pink smoothie out of it. Others just dice and combine it with other fresh fruits to make a bowl of fresh fruit salad.

Ces Nepomuceno-Gamad, who works at Mama Sita’s Recipes and develops creative recipes using local produce, does not stop there. After making a salad dressing with dragon fruit once, she made Dragon Fruit Bread using the recipe of a Banana Bread, making adjustments on the recipe and replacing the banana with blended dragon fruit. She topped it off with sweetened dragon fruit sauce.

Here is her recipe:

Dragon Fruit Bread

Ingredients:

For the bread base:

1 cup frozen dragon fruit chunks

2 large eggs

200 ml. chilled fresh milk or yogurt

200 ml. coconut oil or olive oil

3/4 cup raw sugar

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/s cup cacao nibs or walnuts

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Zest from 1 pc. lemon or dayap

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.

2. In a blender, combine all wet ingredients (eggs, milk or yogurt, and oil) with dragon fruit chunks. Pulse until you get a pink smoothie texture.

3. Add in dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, baking powder, and sugar. Stir and pulse again to combine. Continue blending until everything is incorporated evenly into a pancake-like batter.

4. Prepare the baking pan, preferably a round dome pan, loaf pan or cake pan. Grease well and pour the batter into the pan evenly. Add nuts or nibs in between pouring.

5. Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

6. Make dragon fruit sauce while the bread is baking.

For the dragon fruit sauce:

2 cups dragon fruit chunks

1 cup raw sugar

1/4 cup butter

1 tbsp. cornstarch

Procedure:

1. In a saucepan, combine dragon fruit chunks and sugar. Cook over medium heat until fruit has liquefied and sugar has melted.

2. Stir in butter and cornstarch and cook until a sweet velvety sauce is made. 

3. When the bread has finished baking, remove from oven and let it cool down. Then gently remove from pan. Top with generous scoops of dragon fruit sauce.

4. This recipe is best enjoyed freshly baked or chilled. Consume within 2 days from baking.

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