Hummingbird cake specially made for my birthday: every bite makes you hum with delight.
Yet another spectacular birthday has gone and I turned one more year older. I wanted to thank each and everyone who took time off their busy schedule to wish me, everyone made me so special. My man as always took me for dinner at the best restaurant in the city, the food was fabulous and we enjoyed so much. Sharing the collage:
As always I pampered myself to the fullest this time too by baking a very special cake. I’d been baking cakes for my and my hubby’s birthday for the past 7 years, it has become a tradition now. I’d started searching for the best cakes to bake for my birthday a week ago and I picked hummingbird cake. I loved the name of the cake and the ingredients added to it. The cake batter has crushed pineapple, mashed bananas and toasted/crushed pecans added to flour, egg and oil. My instinct kept saying that this cake is going to turn out delicious and so I made up my mind to bake this.
In deed, one of the best cakes I’d made and I loved the texture and flavor of the cake. This cake can be served just like that or it can be covered with frosting which will obviously enhance the taste of it. I made a cream cheese/butter frosting. I have to highlight that the pecans added to the cake batter and the frosting gave a real nice crunchy and nutty flavor to the cake. The cake tasted even more delicious after chiling it. It’s getting better and better as it sits.
In deed this cake with make you hum with delight and joy!!!
Recipe courtesy: Joy of baking.com
Preparation Pictures
Flour mix
Wet ingredients
Cake batter
The cakes
- All purpose flour- 3 cups
- Granulated white sugar- 1½ cups
- Baking soda- 1 tsp
- Salt- ½ tsp
- Ground cinnamon- 1 tsp
- Eggs, large- 3
- Oil, sunflower or canola oil- ¾ cup
- Vanilla extract- 1½ tsp
- Crushed Pineapple, canned- 8 ounce (along with the juice)
- Mashed bananas- 2 cups (2 large ripe bananas)
- Pecans, toasted and crushed- 1 cup
- Cream cheese, room temperature- 8 ounce
- Butter, unsalted and room temperature- ¼ cup
- Powdered sugar or icing sugar- 3⅔ cups
- Vanilla extract- 1 tsp
- Pecans, finely chopped- ½ cup
- Preheat the oven to 350 F or 180 C.
- Place the pecans on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and toast it in the oven for 8 minutes. Let it cool down and crush it, keep aside.
- Grease two: 9 x 2 inch cake pans (or one 8 inch square pan and one small round pan) with butter or cooking spray, line the pans with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and ground cinnamon well.
- In an another bowl, first whisk the eggs well. To that add oil, crushed pineapple along with the juice in the can, mashed bananas, vanilla extract and toasted pecans. Combine well using a whisk.
- If using fresh pineapple, cut the pineapple into tiny pieces and crush it. Mash the ripe bananas till smooth and without lumps.
- Slowly add the wet mixture to the flour mix and combine well using a spatula till well incorporated. You don't have to use an electric hand mixer to combine, a spatula is enough.
- Pour the batter evenly to the cake pans, fill only ¾th of the pan leave space for the cake to rise while baking.
- Place the cake pans on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a fork inserted to the center of the cake comes out clean.
- If the center of the cake hasn't cooked well after 45 minutes, place the cake pan on the top rack of the oven and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes.
- Make sure the center has cooked well.
- Take the cakes out of the oven, let it cool down completely. Gently flip it over a wire rack and let it rest for sometime.
- Using an electric hand mixer or use a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter till creamy and smooth.
- Add the powdered sugar little by little, first beat at low speed and then increase the speed and beat till it turns creamy.
- Add the vanilla extract and beat for a few minutes.
- At the end add the chopped pecans and combine it using a spatula.
- If the frosting is not that thick, keep the bowl in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour. It will set well.
- Place the first cake layer on a cake stand, spread the frosting evenly over it.
- Place the second layer and spread the entire cake with the frosting.
- Using an angled spatula, smoothen the frosting.
- I baked the cakes in a square pan and a small round pan.
- Placed the square cake on a cake stand, covered it with frosting.
- Placed the round cake over it and covered the entire cake with the frosting.
- I wanted to make it look even more prettier so I wrapped the end of the cakes with beige satin ribbon (you could use maroon or red ribbons too). (See the picture).
- It was still incomplete, to enhance the look I had to place 3 plastic flowers on the cakes. If you have fresh flowers you could use that or you could even use fondant or icing flowers. Voila, all of a sudden the cake looked appealing and I loved it.
- Spread the crushed pecans on the sides of the cake stand to hide any imperfections 🙂
- Keep the cake in the refrigerator for sometime, chiling makes the cake set well and it tastes better too. So don't forget to chill it.
- Cut into desired shaped and serve.
- Any leftover cakes can be refrigerated for a few days.
- Enjoy this amazing cake with your friends and family!
