Cake. The humble old cake.
History has seen this food staple evolve immensely over the years.
What used to be made purely out of butter, sugar, eggs, milk and flour, is now made with the addition of fruit, nuts, spices, shredded coconut, almond meal, chocolate bits, veggies…. the list goes on.
Sponge cakes or cakes with a meringue frosting were about as fancy as one would get back a few hundred years ago. But oh how things have changed!
Basically, cakes can now include basically anything in them. As long as you have your staple cake ingredients (butter, flour, eggs and the like), it doesn’t matter what else you add to your cake. It’ll still be classified as a cake.
Think: Christmas cake, apple cake, Boston cream pie, coffee cake… the options are basically endless.
Recently, I’ve enjoyed trying new cake recipes that differ to the traditional pound/butter cakes and chocolate cakes I’ve so often made. I’ve discovered that I love chunks in my cake (such as pineapple, apple or chocolate chunks) and the addition of fruit or chocolate bits make the cake incredibly moist and flavorsome.
This hummingbird cake is one such example. Don’t ask me where the name comes from, but I know that the hummingbird cake is characterized by the addition of pineapple and banana chunks. Pecans and cinnamon are usually added too – and cream cheese frosting tops it off.
I really loved this cake. It’s moist and comes together easily and keeps well for 4-5 days when kept in an airtight container in the fridge. In fact, the older it gets the better it tastes. The flavors are allowed time to combine and it stays moist.
Save RecipeIngredients
- 8 8 oz self-raising flour
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp mixed spice
- 8 oz brown sugar
- 15.5 oz can crushed pineapple, drained (reserve 1/4 cup of juice to add to mixture)
- 1.7 oz desiccated coconut
- 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 3 oz cream cheese
- 1.7 oz unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Grease and line the base of a 23cm square cake pan. Sift flour and spices into a large bowl. Add sugar, pineapple, reserved pineapple juice, coconut, banana, walnuts, eggs and oil. Stir to combine.
- Spread into lined pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Place on a rack and set aside to cool.
- To make icing, place cheese, butter, vanilla and icing sugar in an electric mixer and beat until smooth. Spread on top of cooled cake.
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