I have been drooling over photos of Hummingbird Cakes, in recipe books and Pinterest for quite some time now. The thought of some of my favorite foods (pineapple, banana, pecan nuts, cinnamon, and cream cheese frosting) all being combined into one beautiful cake has left me fantasizing about it at two in the morning. I got all my ingredients together yesterday and made this delicious, summery cake for tea this afternoon. So to all my friends who have been nagging me to start blogging again: please feel free to drop in and help finish this to prevent too much damage to my thighs and butt.
I found a recipe in this month’s TUIS magazine and adapted it to work with the ingredients that I had in the house. I ended with a cake that is full of flavor, moist and not too much of a fuss to create. The aroma of this cake drew my family out from all corners of the house, demanding to know what I was baking. I topped it with a lime cream cheese frosting and added some Chevin Goat’s cheese for extra tanginess and because I wanted to get rid of it before the use-by-date 🙂 You can omit this if you want to, I am sure the frosting will be just as tasty.
The original recipe called for the batter to be baked in three 20 cm pans, but as I do not own three of them, I settled for two, 22 cm pans and baked the layers 15 minutes longer. Do feel free to create a tall three layer cake should you feel the urge.
Please note that you would probably feel the desire to have more than one slice of this. Do not ignore it! It will not just go away! Enjoy with a good cuppa Joe or your favorite tea.
Hummingbird Cake:
Prep time: 3/4 hour
Baking time: 1 hour
Total: 1 Hour 45 min
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup canola oil
- 2 t vanilla essence
- 3 cups flour
- 1 T Baking powder
- 1/2 t salt
- 2 t cinnamon
- 4 medium-sized bananas mashed
- 1 430g can pineapple, don’t discard the syrup
- 1 cup pecan nuts roughly chopped
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 4 1/2 cups icing sugar
- 1 tub cream cheese
- 100g Chevin goat’s cheese
- 10ml vanilla essence
- 1 T lime juice
Method:
- Pre-heat oven to 180° c
- Line two 22cm cake tins with baking paper
- Beat the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy and until the sugar has dissolved.
- Add oil and vanilla and mix in.
- Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and fold into the wet mixture.
- Add bananas, pineapple with syrup, and pecans and mix in lightly.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake for 1 hour, do a skewer test. If the skewer does not come out clean bake for a few minutes more.
- Remove from the oven and let it cool.
Make the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Add all ingredients to a mixer and mix well. Do not over mix!
- Spread the mixture between the cake layers and decorate the cake with the remaining mixture. I added some chopped pecans to the top layer.
