Hummingbird Cake

When I was a student in Melbourne, it was hard to find a cake display in a cafe that didn’t include a hummingbird cake. Having plenty of banana and pineapple from the basket of fruit I had been given, I decided to it was time to revisit my trusted recipe - ideally while E was soothing the crying baby.

I suspect my recipe in my notebook came from a newspaper or magazine but I have had it too long to remember the origin. It is one that I come across every now and then and am hit with a burst of nostalgia for the time when it was the height of fashion. It is fruity and moist, a little spicy and is pleasingly indulgent with the added richness of mandatory cream cheese frosting.

The recipe I had was for 3 x 20cm diameter round cakes sandwiched together with frosting and then covered with it. But that seemed excessive for a homely cake and I didn’t have quite enough butter, so I scaled down the ingredients to about two thirds to make 1 x 22cm diameter round cake. I halved the frosting and found that I only needed half to ice the cake, so I have the remainder in the freezer. My recipe also called for decoration with passionfruit and mango slices but I am not keen on mango and thought strawberry and kiwi fruit would give an equally exotic feel. Unfortunately I had that fruit but not the energy to decorate so I just served it with frosting.

I have sought out hummingbird cake since making it and found that it is indeed a layered cake which is traditionally made with banana, pineapple, spices and cream cheese frosting, although it seems the quantities varied in the versions I found. But there is not much history of it. According to FoodTimeline the first printed reference to the cake is 1978. It seems odd that there are not older records, as it seems a classic cake in my book. It was nice to make it again and to have a smaller version of the recipe that is more fitting for our household.

Hummingbird Cake

150g butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
2½ small bananas, mashed
⅔ cup chopped/crushed pineapple (not drained)
⅔ cup raw sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups self raising flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp cardamom seeds, ground
2 cloves, ground
pinch freshly grated nutmeg
½ tsp bicarb soda
¼ tsp salt

Cream Cheese Frosting:
60g butter, softened
125g cream cheese, softened
½ tsp vanilla essence
juice of ½ a lime or lemon
1⅓ cups icing sugar

Grease and line a round 22cm cake tin (or if you want layers you could do two 20cm tins).

Mix butter, eggs, pineapple, banan, sugar and vanilla together. Add dry ingredients and mix to combine but do not overbeat.

Pour into prepared tin and bake in 180 C oven for about 45 minutes or til a skewer stuck in the middle comes out cleanly. Sit in tin 5 minutes and then turn out onto wire rack to cool.

To make frosting, mix butter, cream cheese, vanilla essence and lime juice together with spoon or electric beaters. Add icing sugar gradually til all is incorporated. Spread frosting over cooled cake and decorate with fruit if desired.

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