The Hummingbird Cake has had a bit of a surge of popularity recently, but it’s actually a cake that has been around since the 1960’s – if not earlier – where it originated from Jamaica before being exported to the United States and gaining popularity in their southern states.
The Hummingbird Cake shares a fair few characteristics with carrot cake – it’s oil-based, it’s beautifully spiced and it has a lovely cream cheese icing. Where it differes though is that instead of carrot, it’s packed full of bananas and pineapple so it’s got a sweeter, more tropical kick. I’ve blended the pineapple into the cake with my recipe, but I’ve also seen people fold the pineapple chunks in the cake too, or I’ve seen them do both! You do whatever you prefer – but I didn’t fold through the pineapple because I was worried about it sinking to the bottom! Whatever way you approach this though, it’s a wonderful cake and a great way to use up bananas that are going over-ripe that doesn’t involve you making banana bread for the thousandth time!
Hummingbird Cake
Print RecipeIngredients
- For the cake:
- 375g Self-Raising Flour
- 375g Caster Sugar
- 4 x Ripe Bananas
- 3 x Eggs
- 250ml Veg Oil
- 275g Pineapple Pieces
- 100g Pecans (plus extra for decorating)
- 2 Tsps Cinammon
- 1 Tsp All Spice
- 1/2 Tsp Nutmeg
- 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
- 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
- For the icing:
- 425g Icing Sugar
- 125g Cream Cheese
- 75g Unsalted Butter, softened
- 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 180°c/375°F/Gas Mark 5.
Add the oil, eggs and vanilla extract to a large bowl a mix together.
Mash the bananas with a fork and blitz or crush up the pineapple and mix that into the eggs and oil.
Add the dry ingredients - the flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb, spices and combine into the wet ingredients.
Toast the pecans in a dry pan for a few minutes and then chop roughly into pieces and fold into the batter.
Grease and line two 8" cake tins and divide between the two tins.
Bake in the oven for 45 - 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the tins and leave to cool completely.
To make the cream cheese icing, beat together the softened butter and cream cheese with the vanilla extract for a few minutes, and then combine in the icing sugar in two halves and beat together until lovely and pale and creamy.
Trim the top off of one of the cakes so it's flat and level.
Add a layer of cream cheese icing to the bottom layer of cake - until it's almost to the edge - and then place on the top layer.
Use the rest of the icing to the top of the cake, smooth off and then decorate with more toasted pecans. Then enjoy!
