This Hummingbird Cake is a beautiful and popular cake, super easy to make, topped off with a delicious cream cheese frosting.
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
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Plain White Flour
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White Sugar
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Brown Sugar
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Baking Soda
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Salt
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Cinnamon
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Nutmeg
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Eggs
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Vegetable Oil
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Vanilla Essence
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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
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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 Hummingbird Cake
Hummingbird Cake
Delicious moist Hummingbird Cake layered with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 3 Cups Plain White Flour, 450 grams
- 1 Cup Plain White Sugar, 205 grams
- 2/3rds Cup Soft Brown Sugar, 140 grams, Packed
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon, ground
- 1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
- 3 Eggs, Medium, Beaten
- 3/4 Cup Vegetable Oil, Canola, 185 mls,
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Vanilla Essence
- 1 Cup Crushed Pineapple, 250grams, with juice*
- 1 Cup Walnuts, 120 grams, lightly toasted, diced
- 1 3/4 Cups Bananas, overripe, mashed (approx 3 medium bananas)
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 125 grams Butter, room temperature
- 165 grams Cream Cheese, room temperature
- 2 & 2/3rds Cups Icing Sugar, 425 grams
- 1 Tablespoon Milk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
Decorating Ideas
- Chopped Walnuts or Toasted Pecans
- Dried Bananas or Pineapple
- Freeze Dried Raspberries
- Toasted Coconut
Instructions
- Preheat the Oven to 180C Bake
- If toasting the walnuts, chop them into smaller pieces and add to a dry baking tray and lightly toast in the heating oven for 5 minutes until fragrant, set aside.
- Line two 20-23cm baking pans, coat with cooking spray then line the base and the sides of the baking pans with baking paper, ensure the sides are at least 8 cm high.
- In a large bowl add the flour, white sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir well to combine, ensure no lumps of brown sugar remain.
- Add to this beaten eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla essence, fold this through until the flour just dampened.
- Add to this the crushed pineapple (measure the pineapple with juice into the 1 cup measure), the toasted walnuts and mashed bananas.
- Gently fold this through the cake mix until fully combined.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the 2 prepared cake tins.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes until the cakes spring back to the touch, are golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes
- 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 with a paddle or scraper attachment add the butter and whip for approximately 4 minutes until the butter is pale in colour and creamy
- Add the cream cheese and whip for a further 4 minutes until pale and silky
- Add 1/3rd of the sifted icing sugar and mix in well
- Add the next 1/3rd of icing sugar and the milk and mix well
- Finally add the last of the icing sugar and vanilla and mix until fully combined, then whip together for a further minute until light and fluffy.
- Place one layer of cake on the stand and dollop on half of the frosting and spread in an even smooth layer
- Add the second layer on top and spread over the remaining cream cheese frosting to an even smooth layer
- Decorate how you choose, something as simple as chopped walnuts or whatever you have on hand.
- Refrigerate until ready to eat, will keep for up to 5 days covered in the fridge.
- Enjoy!
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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.