Hummingbird Cake - Recipe

The cake has to be stored in the fridge or cut into portions and freeze

The last three cakes I've made have used tinned crushed pineapple and thankfully I have now used up the last tin...........I chose to make this cake because I love the name Hummingbird Cake!

Apparently this cake recipe has been around since the 19th century and is a tradition in the Southern United States.  Hummingbird cake is made using coconut, banana, spices, crushed pineapple and pecans, with a cream cheese frosting.

The 'cake lady' at my local coffee shop used to make this cake and it goes perfectly with a cup of coffee, but for me any cake goes perfectly with a cup of coffee.

Hummingbird Cake

It's a really easy cake to make and you don't need any fancy kitchen equipment - all you need is a bowl, spoon and a sieve.

You will need:  23cm square cake tin greased and base lined.

Ingredients:
450g can crushed pineapple
150g plain flour
75g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
220g soft light brown sugar
45g desiccated coconut
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
180ml vegetable oil

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
2. Pour the contents of the tin of crushed pineapple into a sieve set over a basin and leave to drain. Press down with a potato masher to get the syrup to drain into the bowl.  Reserve 60ml of the pineapple syrup for later.
3. Sift the plain and self raising flour into a bowl, followed by the bicarbonate of soda and spices. Add the sugar to the bowl, stir in the drained pineapple, reserved syrup, coconut, banana, eggs and oil.  Pour the cake batter into the cake tin.
4. Bake the cake for approximately 40 minutes. Leave the cake in the tin for 10 minutes, remove the cake to a rack to cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting
30g butter, softened
60g full fat cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
240g icing sugar
Pecans, chopped to decorate

1. Cream the butter and cream cheese together in a large bowl.  Add the vanilla extract and gradually beat in the sifted icing sugar.
2. Spread over the cooled cake.
3. Decorate with chopped pecans.