Hummingbird Cake: made in the dorms

Hey cub scouts!! It’s been so long since I’ve blogged to you! How is everyone?! Life is good at Chapman, I’m just keeping busy being and RA and baking in the caf. Not too busy to blog though. I realized that this weekend when it occurred to me I hadn’t blasted a blog out into cyber space since this summer!! I know!! So for that, I am extremely sorry.

I guess I got too caught up spending time in the kitchen crafting up yummy recipes and not enough time sharing them with you! So my commitment to you is to be better at blogging my recipes when I make them and share the sugar so you can craft these goodies too. WHOO! So here we go!

This Sunday was my church’s (Rock Harbor) 17th BIRTHDAY PARTY! So we did the only logical thing to do which is have a Birthday Party at the park and we had a cake decorating competition. So I entered. Naturally. I decided to make a Hummingbird Cake which is basically a banana cake infused with pecans and pineapple. An explosion of goodness dancing in your mouth. Then I decided to vamp up the party and toss in a sweet buttercream filling topped with thinly sliced fresh bananas. Slap on some cream cheese frosting and a few cute pecans and WAH-LAH! You have the winner of the cake competition. Literally. haha! I was not expecting to take home the prize, but am so honored the judges chose mine as the yummiest.

So read closely y’all! This cake is award winning. 😉

Before I give you the recipe I need to put a disclaimer out there! I had better intentions for the appearance of this cake (the frosting) but I wanted to note that I live in a dorm room and don’t have my own kitchen to work in. I made this cake in the community kitchen with my own tools. (my hands) The frosting decided to take on a path of its own and not necessarily cooperate with me. This resulted in an extremely “home made” looking cake, but sometimes the ones with character are the best kind.

Without further ado, here is the Humming Bird Cake

WARNING: This cake is 3 layers and 9 inches round. It’s huge. It’s fabulous. You’re going to love it.

Special things you will need for this cake:

9 inch round cake pan (It’s great if you have 3)

Ingredients

Cake

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 8 oz. can of crushed pineapple, with the liquid
• 2 cups chopped ripe (really brown bananas
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Buttercream Filling

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick) or you can do 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup shortening
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 to 3 cups powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)
• 2 to 4 Tablespoons of milk

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 16 oz of cream cheese (2 8oz. boxes)
• 1 cup of butter softened, (2 sticks)
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 4 cups powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)

Extras!

• 2-3 bananas
• pecans

Instructions:

For the cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease three 9-inch round cake pans.

2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl.

3. Add the eggs, oil and vanilla to the dry ingredients and stir to combine.

4. Add crushed pineapple and chopped bananas and stir until combined. Finally stir in 1 cup of the pecans. Divide the batter evenly into the three pans and bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool.

For the Filling:

1. Cream the butter and shortening until fluffy. Beat in the salt and vanilla.

2. Add the sugar and milk and beat until combined and smooth.

For the Frosting:

1. In a mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese until fluffy and creamy. Add vanilla.

2. With the mixer on low, slowly add the powdered sugar until it’s all mixed in.

To assemble:

Place one of the cakes on whatever plate your cake is going to be displayed on. Using a serrated knife, level out the top of the cake as best you can so the cake doesn’t topple over.

Generously lather on some buttercream and spread around the top of the cake so it’s level. Then place the sliced bananas on top of the buttercream. Put layer 2 cake on top of the bananas, then get eye level with the cake (it get’s pretty intimate) and find where the cake needs to be lifted up (to remain level) and slide some extra banana slices in there to give it some extra support.

Once again, lather the second half on the butter cream on top of cake layer 2 and smooth her out. Add a layer of sliced bananas, top it with cake layer 3 and slide in those extra supportive bananas.

Now is the fun part. I give you complete creative license to decorate your cake how ever you want. I would have done mine differently if my conditions would have been different. This is what I would do. Frost the entire cake with the cream cheese frosting making it as smooth as possible. Then take the extra frosting and using a piping bag with the star tip, make a decorative edge around the top of the cake. You can do this on the bottom too. Then take your extra pecans and embellish your cake however you wish!

You can also make little stars all over the top of the cake (kind of like I have pictured) or even down the sides as well!

If you don’t want to pipe then you can make swirlies all over the cake too and add pecans to the top! The options are endless, but no matter what it looks like on the outside (mine is a perfect example) you know it will taste great on the inside.

I hope you enjoy this yummy cake! Comment below and tell me how yours turned out! I also am taking suggestions for new recipe ideas to blog about so let me hear it! Share with your friends and lets get these recipes rollin’ around the world!

I love y’all!! Thanks for supporting me in this new endeavor! Keep shining your light.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good” Psalm 34:8

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