Classic Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

In this post, I am going to digress from Indian dishes and write about Hummingbird cake. When my parents moved to the U.S. from India we initially lived in Virginia. My memories of Virginia are of my brother being born, our first house, and of course, hummingbird cake. Hummingbird cake is popular in the South. Originally from Jamaica where the national symbol is the doctor bird or swallow tail hummingbird.

My mom was fascinated by American baking. Baking was such a foreign concept to her - she grew up with Indian desserts, full of ghee, sugar, and milk. So baking posed a wonderful challenge for her - cakes, pies, brownies. She loved to try so many different recipes and she would clip so many different recipes from magazines and newspapers. Hummingbird cake was one of her first baking adventures. And it became a staple in our house for birthdays, so popular that it was my brother’s official birthday cake for years until he discovered chocolate.

My mom clipped this recipe from the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1978. The cake was made by a baker in Florida who had won a cooking competition. When looking at the history of Hummingbird Cake, the recipe was first published in Southern Living Magazine in 1978, one of their most popular recipes. Likely the recipe came from there to the Richmond Gazette.

I love this cake for so many reasons. First of all, it's easy to make. All you need are 2 bowls and you are all set. !There is a lot of fruit, but it's not bread or a traditional fruitcake. And its not banana bread, though it has a good amount of bananas. It has pineapple which adds another dimension of flavor and vegetable oil keeps it moist and tender. The cream cheese frosting is not too sweet and complements the fruit nicely.

I made a few changes from my mom's version which make all the difference. The original recipe asked for 2 cups of sugar which seemed too much. The pineapple adds a good amount of sweetness so I cut the sugar down to 1 1/4 cup of sugar which is a nice balance to the cream cheese frosting. You can decrease sugar in most baking recipes by 10 - 15% and not notice a difference in the taste and texture. But more than that can change the cake. When there is fruit in a baking recipe, you can cut the sugar down significantly. I like that the cake tastes less sweet and more balanced.

I used almonds in the recipe instead of pecans. Pecans are classically southern, but the almonds are smooth and give the cake a little different kind of crunch.

I mashed the bananas instead of cutting them into pieces. And I decreased the total number of bananas by half to about one cup. This makes the cake less banana bread-like and airier and cake-y. The final cake is light and has a nice balance of fruit and banana. I am a big fan of cream cheese frosting. A wonderfully easy frosting to make it offers a nice balance of tangy and sweet. It is delicious!

My mom made a two-layer cake instead of three. I think she thought that 2 layers of the cake were plenty for us kids. Three layers are more dramatic and delicious. I stuck to the proportions for the three-layer cake in my recipe. Either way, it is delicious!

Classic Hummingbird Cake

From The Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 1978

Originally from Southern Living, 1978

This is a great cake! Moist and delicious with pineapple and bananas, but it's not your everyday bread or traditional fruitcake. Butter is swapped out for vegetable oil, and there is plenty of fruit without all the extra sugar.

Yield: 3 9 inch cake layers

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 eggs (beaten)
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 8 ounce can crushed pineapple
• 1 cup chopped pecans or almonds
• 1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour three 9 inch cake pans.

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon. In a small bowl, beat the 3 eggs. Add the eggs and oil to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. No need to beat the ingredients here.

3. Gently stir in the vanilla, pineapple, pecans and bananas. Sometimes I skip the pecans or add any nuts that I may have on hand. Spoon the batter into the cake pans and bake for 25 - 30 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out cleanly.

4. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes. Then remove cake from pans and cool completely. Meanwhile, make the cream cheese frosting. Frost with cream cheese frosting and serve.

Cream Cheese Frosting

This is a wonderfully easy frosting to make. A tangy and sweet frosting that is a nice complement to the pineapple and banana in hummingbird cake.

Makes enough to frost a 3 layer cake plus some extra.

• 2 8 ounce packages cream cheese (softened)
• 1 cup of butter (softened)
• 2 16 ounce boxes of confectioner’s sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Leave the cream cheese and butter out until they are softened.

2. In a medium bowl, add the cream cheese and butter. Beat together until creamy about 5 minutes.

3. Add the confectioner’s sugar and vanilla and beat until fluffy. The frosting is super yummy and the kids always want to eat it before its done. Creamy and sweet!