How to Make Hummingbird Cake
Serves: 10-12
Preparation time: 50 mins
Cooking time: 55 mins
Ingredients needed to make Hummingbird Cake:
- 2 ¾ cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 3 ripe bananas, chopped
- 1 cup whole pecans
- ½ cup fresh pineapple, finely chopped
- 3 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 ¼ tsp baking soda
- 1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp nutmeg, freshly grated
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- Unsalted butter, for greasing
For the frosting:
- 2 packages cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 12 tbsp unsalted butter, diced and softened
- 1 tbsp lemon zest, finely grated
Cooking instructions for Hummingbird Cake:
- To prepare the cake, warm up your oven to 350 degrees F.
- Grease two 8’’ round cake tins with a knob of butter and spread a sheet of parchment paper within each of them.
- Grease the parchment papers as well and sprinkle some flour over them to coat well; set aside.
- Scatter the pecans onto a baking sheet and bake them for 8 minutes or until they are toasted enough to give out a nice nutty aroma.
- Set aside to cool to some extent and then chop them into coarse chunks.
- Tip them into a small bowl and throw in the fruit pieces.
- Empty ½ cup flour into it and toss them well together to mix thoroughly.
- Place rest of the flour in a separate bowl and stir in the spices, salt as well as baking soda until well combined.
- Crack the eggs in another bowl and beat in the sugar at high speed, using an electric mixer, for 5 minutes or until the mixture turns light and thick.
- Drizzle the oil into the mixture in a steady stream while whisking it into the mixture until fully incorporated.
- Fold in the flour mixture in batches, until all of it is used up to form a thick batter.
- Scatter the nut-fruit mixture into it and stir them into the batter until distributed evenly.
- Divide the batter among the prepared pans and bake them for 50 minutes or until the cakes are baked through.
- Set aside for about 25 minutes to cool down to some extent.
- Remove the cakes from their respective pans and set aside on a wire rack until they cool down completely.
- To make the frosting, beat in all its ingredients until the mixture turns light and fluffy.
- Place one cake onto a cake plate and smother its surface with half of the frosting.
- Place the 2nd cake on top and spread rest of frosting all over the sides and surface of the layered cake.
- Slice and serve.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
