This Hummingbird Cake is a beautiful and popular cake, super easy to make, topped off with a delicious cream cheese frosting.
Posted October 17, 2022, Updated December 18, 2024
Hummingbird cake is a lovely recipe, originating in Jamaica in the late 1960’s, hence the lovely tropical combination of banana and pineapple, originally called the Doctor Bird Cake it has since spread across the world.
Hummingbird cakes are all pretty similar the world over, with slight variations everyone makes to make it their own, but the basics remain the same, a lovely light and moist cake, with either pecans or walnuts and smothered in cream cheese icing.
And as you can see it is quite impressive to look at! There are quite a list of ingredients but none of them too crazy or unusual, you may have many of them already in the pantry.
It is similar to a banana cake but it’s not, it’s similar to a carrot cake too, but it’s not! It is it’s own unique deliciousness, often found with coconut also to further enhance the Caribbean flavours.
You will need
-
Plain White Flour
-
White Sugar
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Brown Sugar
-
Baking Soda
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Salt
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Cinnamon
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Nutmeg
-
Eggs
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Vegetable Oil
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Vanilla Essence
-
Crushed Pineapple
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Walnuts (or Pecans)
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Bananas, overipe
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Cream Cheese
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Butter
-
Icing Sugar
To make the cake is quite simple, this makes a lovely deep cake, I have baked it in two separate baking pans, and added a layer of the cream cheese frosting between each layer, this cuts down on the baking time and ensures it stays moist rather than drying at the edges to cook the middle.
First you combine the dry ingredients in the bowl and combine well, I have used both white and brown sugar for maximum flavour. Then add to this the beaten eggs, oil and vanilla and fold through gently.
Finally adding the crushed pineapple, walnuts and mashed bananas. A few tips on these ingredients. To measure the pineapple you keep the juice, so I just spoon a cup full of both the crushed pineapple and the juice.
For the walnuts (or pecans if using) I like to toast these lightly before baking, simply adding them to the oven as it heats up for around 5 minutes until they begin to smell fragrant.
The bananas act like a wet ingredient here, so you want them to be lovely just brown bananas, or at least very speckled with brown which increases their flavour and purpose for this recipe.
Once it is all incorporated you add this to well lined 20-23cm tins. This cake will rise on cooking so depending on the depth of your pans you may wish to line right up the sides of the pans and over the edge.
Baking takes around 45 minutes, they will be a lovely golden brown, and a skewer inserted will come out clean. Once the cakes are cold you can ice, or you can freeze these cakes until you are ready to serve them.
To make the cream cheese frosting you need to whip the butter, then whip in the cream cheese well, before adding the icing sugar, a dash of milk and vanilla.
To ice the cakes, simply place one of the cakes on the serving plate, and dollop on a generous amount of the icing and spread until even and smooth. Then place the next layer on top and repeat the process with the remaining cream cheese frosting.
There are so many ways to decorate a hummingbird cake, traditionally it is with the nuts used in the cake, but feel free to get as creative as you like with the toppings. Today I have used dried banana, dried pineapple, freeze dried raspberries, walnuts and a little sprinkling of coconut because I was feeling extra!
It would be just as lovely with just chopped walnuts sprinkled over the top.
Because of the cream cheese frosting this is a cake that needs to be stored in the refrigerator, as a result it will last for around 5 days if covered well.
It is that easy! I hope you love this recipe. It also makes beautiful muffins, this recipe would make about 24 muffins, these can also be frosted with the cream cheese frosting.
Onto my version of the delicious Hummingbird Cake!
Hummingbird Cake
Delicious moist Hummingbird Cake layered with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
Cake
- 3 Cups Plain White Flour, 450 g
- 1 Cup Plain White Sugar, 220 g
- ⅔ Cup Soft Brown Sugar, 135 g, Packed
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Fine Salt
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon, ground
- ¼ teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
- 3 Eggs, beaten
- ¾ Cup Vegetable Oil, 185 ml
- 1½ teaspoons Vanilla Essence
- 1 Cup Crushed Pineapple, 280 g, with juice*
- 1 Cup Walnuts, 120 g, lightly toasted, diced
- 1¾ Cups Bananas, 490 g overripe, mashed (3-4 Large Bananas)
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 125 g Butter, room temperature
- 165 g Cream Cheese, room temperature
- 2 ⅔ Cups Icing Sugar, 370 g
- 1 Tablespoon Milk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
Decorating Ideas
- Chopped Walnuts or Toasted Pecans
- Dried Bananas or Pineapple
- Freeze Dried Raspberries
- Toasted Coconut
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (or Fan Forced if both tins do not fit on the one shelf) and grease two 20-23cm round baking tins with cooking spray and line the base and sides with baking paper, ensuring the sides are at least 8 cm high.
- If toasting the walnuts, dice and toast them on a baking tray for 5 minutes until fragrant, then set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine flour, white and brown sugars, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg, breaking up any lumps of brown sugar.
- Fold in the beaten eggs, oil, and vanilla until just combined.
- Add the crushed pineapple (with juice), toasted walnuts, and mashed bananas. Gently fold until fully mixed.
- Divide batter evenly between the tins. Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the cakes spring back to the touch and a skewer comes out clean.
- Cool in the tins for 15 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once cold they are ready to be iced and prepare the cream cheese frosting.
- in a stand mixer, beat the butter for 4 minutes until pale and creamy then add the cream cheese and beat for another 4 minutes until smooth.
- Mix in the icing sugar 1/3rd at a time, mixing well in between, adding milk with the second addition. Finally, add vanilla and whip until fluffy.
- Place one cake layer on a stand, spread with half the frosting, then add the second layer and spread the remaining frosting evenly on the top.
- Decorate with chopped walnuts or as desired. Refrigerate until ready to serve; keeps for up to 5 days in the fridge.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- Some people like to cut each cake layer in half again, so you will end up with a stunning 4 layer cake, feel free to amend the quantity of frosting if you do this.
- Uniced hummingbird cakes will keep well in the freezer for up to 3 months if tightly covered then stored in an airtight container.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 20 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 492Total Fat: 23gSaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 14gCholesterol: 50mgSodium: 270mgCarbohydrates: 68gFiber: 2gSugar: 45gProtein: 5g
JustAMumNZ.com, occasionally offers nutritional information for recipes contained on this site. This information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. This information comes from online calculators. Although justamumnz.com attempts to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures are only estimates.
I hope you love this recipe as much as we do, be sure to let me know in the comments below what you think!
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Happy Baking!
Anna
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Leslie says
Hi,
Which rack in the oven would you suggest, & can the cakes be baked in a fan-forced oven?
Thanks,
Leslie
justamumnz says
I always bake in the middle of the oven if I can, or if I am baking two cakes I pop the trays one above middle and one below. If you are baking two cakes you can use multi bake, multi fan or fan forced if that is the option for multi level baking in your oven. Otherwise for a single cake I use the Bake function.